PUTRAJAYA – Former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak denied that he is a national embarrassment, as mentioned by the Appellate Court Judge in his judgement on the SRC International Sdn Bhd misappropriation case today.
On the contrary, Najib, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) of Pekan said that he is among the Prime Ministers who have placed the interest of the country first at all time, and increased the national assets from RM800 million to RM2 trillion during his administration.
“Actually, I am very disappointed with the judgement. Throughout my administration, there were many impactful things that placed the national interest at its highest level.
“Thus, the term and judgement were not right. I have brought a lot of wealth to the country.
“If you want to talk about a conduct that embarrassed the country, wasn’t the Foreign Exchange (Forex) scandal more suitable? Wasn’t that a national embarrassment and caused us to lose more than RM31 billion?
“Wasn’t the context national disgrace far more accurate for such scandal? That is among the examples that I can give,” he said during a virtual news conference today, right after the verdict on his appeal to set aside the conviction and sentence for the SRC International Sdn Bhd case was dismissed by the Court of Appeal today.
The Forex scandal implicated the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) found that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had lost RM31.5 billion between 1992 and 1994.
The RCI was set up during the reign of Najib as the Prime Minister and found that Tun Mahathir was among those responsible for the forex scandal.
The Court of Appeal has decided to maintain the conviction and 12 months jail sentence along with RM210 million in fine on Najib and dismissed his appeal to set aside the High Court’s judgement today.
“This conduct of the appellant (Najib) can only be indicative for one thing. Once the funds have been secured by SRC International, over which the appellant had full control, he was free to use them for his personal benefit.
“This is shown by the flow of RM42 million into his personal accounts. There is no national interest here, just a national embarrassment,” Judge Abdul Karim Abd Jalil said while delivering his verdict this morning.
Najib has his final chance of appealing to the Federal Court to strike off his conviction and sentence for seven counts of money-laundering, criminal breach of trust and power abuse of RM42 million belonging to SRC International, a subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). -MalaysiaGazette
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