Oct 25 hearing for Najib's appeal for bank documents in 1MDB trial

The Court of Appeal has set Oct 25 to hear Najib Razak's appeal for bank documents related to US investment bank Goldman Sachs and former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz's family.

The hearing date was fixed following case management before Court of Appeal deputy registrar Mohd Khairi Haron today.

Deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib, when contacted, confirmed the hearing date.

Yesterday, a three-man Court of Appeal panel led by justice P Ravinthran directed that case management be conducted today after allowing the application by Najib's defence team to postpone the appeal hearing.

At yesterday's court proceedings, lawyer Effa Azuin Aidrul Hisham, a lawyer on Najib's defence team, requested that the court postpone the hearing as senior counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah was down with a fever.

Najib is seeking to obtain banking documents for use in his trial on the misappropriation of RM2.3 billion funds from 1MDB.

He is appealing against the decision of the High Court on July 12 last year to dismiss two of his discovery applications to compel the prosecution in his 1MDB trial to disclose banking documents linked to Zeti's family regarding claims that her family received money from fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low.

Najib filed a court order on March 24 last year, seeking to compel the prosecution to provide several bank statements from companies, including Aktis Capital Singapore Pte Ltd, Country Group Securities Public Company Ltd, ACME Time Ltd (BVI), Butamba Investments Ltd, and Central Holdings Ltd, believed to be related to Jho Low and Zeti’s family in his 1MDB case.

The Pekan MP also filed a second application on April 7 last year, seeking to obtain the 2020 confidential settlement agreement between the government and Goldman Sachs Group, and the transcripts or forensic report on the phones of former Goldman Sachs partner in Asia, Tim Leissner.

Najib is on trial for four charges of using his position to obtain bribes totalling RM2.3 billion from 1MDB funds and 21 charges of money laundering involving the same amount.

The trial is ongoing in the High Court before justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah.