KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Razak's lawyer today complained that millions of ringgit worth of branded goods, especially handbags, owned by his client's wife and daughter which were seized by police had been destroyed by careless handling of the items.
Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said police had marked each individual handbag - most worth tens of thousands of ringgit each, directly with "magic ink" markers.
He lamented that police had adopted the "couldn't care less" attitude when handling the seized goods, owned by Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor and Nooryana Najwa Najib, even though they realised that the items were worth millions of ringgit.
"There was no respect whatsoever for the items seized.
"The police tagged the seized items using magic ink markers directly on each bag and everything else. There was no respect for the items seized at all," he said.
Muhammad Shafee raised the point when applying for court permission to inspect the items which had been seized from his client shortly after Najib lost power after the 14th General Election.
It was reported the items were allegedly purchased using funds siphoned from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
The items, including handbags, shoes, watches, jewellery and cash amounting to about RM680 million, were seized from three premises at the Pavilion Residences linked to the Pekan member of parliament's family.
In his application today, Muhammad Shafee also complained that the police raiding party had failed to follow all procedures when they moved in to conduct the seizures.
He said the search list was not properly prepared and there was no itemisation of content in boxes which had been taken out of the premises.
"They just listed the items as 'kotak' (boxes) but we don't know what on earth is in there," he said.
However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Faten Hadni Khairuddin dismissed Muhammad Shafee's arguments and said everything had been documented properly.
She said it was also not right to say that the seized items had been destroyed as they were kept in a vault in Bank Negara Malaysia and accessible only to authorised officers.
Faten also called on the judge to dismiss Najib's application on security grounds as the seized valuables were worth over RM680 million.
Judge Datuk Muhammad Jamil Hussin later allowed Najib to carry out the inspection but ruled that he can only do it once in the presence of his lawyer.
Najib, 67, had applied to be allowed to physically inspect the items which were seized on May 17, 2018.
He filed the application on grounds that part of the boxes, handbags and containers that were seized had been removed from their original wrappings, and this had caused confusion in the identification process.