Malaysia's top court ordered former Prime Minister Najib Razak on Tuesday to begin his final appeal in two days after rejecting his request that it throw out his graft conviction and 12-year sentence over alleged judicial bias.
Najib has sought to introduce new evidence that would spark a retrial on grounds that the high court judge who convicted him may be biased due to his previous job at a bank that provided financial services to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state fund.
1MDB was a development fund Najib set up shortly after taking power in 2009. Investigators allege at least USD 4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib's associates. Najib was found guilty of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering for illegally receiving USD 9.4 million from SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB.
The five-member Federal Court bench unanimously dismissed Najib's request, agreeing with prosecutors that the background of then-High Court Judge Mohamad Nazlan Mohamad Ghazali was public knowledge. Nazlan is now a judge in the Court of Appeals.
Chief Justice Maimun Tuan Mat said the court couldn't find any link between Nazlan's previous role at the bank and the charges against Najib that could lead to a real danger of bias.
She also said some of the proposed additional evidence the defense is seeking was already available during trial and in any case is irrelevant to the charges.
“We are not convinced that Justice Nazlan made his findings based on anything other than the evidence on record," she said.
“To our mind, there is no miscarriage of justice" since Najib can include the allegation in his final appeal to the top court, she added.
Najib said after the hearing that he was “shocked and bitterly disappointed.”