PUTRAJAYA: Lawyers representing Datuk Seri Najib Razak today asked for another day to wrap up their arguments on why he should be freed from the 12-year jail sentence and RM210 million fine imposed on him by the High Court last year.
They were supposed to have closed their arguments last Thursday but requested today as an additional day to finish their case.
However, as the hearing continued on to 4.30pm, Najib's lawyer Farhan Read said he needed more time to finish submitting.
He requested for at least the morning session tomorrow to finish submitting.
However, lead prosecutor Datuk V. Sithambaram said this would eat into time allotted for the prosecution to present their arguments.
Nevertheless, it was finally agreed that Farhan would finish wrapping up tomorrow and Sithambaram would start on Wednesday.
Earlier, Najib's lawyers contended that trial judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali had committed grave errors in finding the former prime minister guilty of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving RM42 million of SRC International Sdn Bhd funds.
The defence team maintained that Nazlan had misdirected himself on several issues of law when convicting Najib in July last year.
They argued that there is not an iota of evidence to suggest Najib was involved in, or had knowledge of the RM42 million which was moved out of SRC into his account.
On the utilisation of the money, Najib's lawyers said it should be noted that 98 per cent of it was used as contribution to political parties, political and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and charitable or non-governmental organisation (NGO) contributions.
"The usage of the funds in this regard is consistent with the state of mind that the monies in his account was from legitimate sources," lawyer Harvinderjit Singh submitted.
He argued that Najib had always believed that the money in his personal accounts was remainder of donations from the Saudi royal family and that his client never had any intention to cause any loss to SRC.
He also argued that characters like Low Taek Jho @ Jho Low had ensured that bank statements of Najib's accounts were never given to the Pekan member of parliament to ensure he did not know what was going on.
This subterfuge by Jho Low, he said, was done in cahoots with Najib's bank relationship manager and others involved in the scandal.
Harvinderjit also argued that Najib always had genuine belief that the funds deposited into his accounts were a donation from Arab royalty.
He said Najib had a fortified perception of Low's role as a conduit to facilitate donations from 2011 to 2014 based on the now-fugitive businessman's close relations with the Arab royalty.
"The trial judge seriously misdirected himself in not giving proper recognition to the favourable inferences which stood in stark contrast to any allegation of guilt on Najib's part," he concluded.
The appeal is being heard by a three-member bench, chaired by Judge Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil.
The other two judges on the bench are Datuk Has Zanah Mehat and Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera.