3-day hearing from July 1 to hear Rosmahs corruption appeal

Judge Nadzarin Wok Nordin fixes the dates during case management today.

Her lawyer, Akberdin Abdul Kader, said the dates were fixed during case management today before Justice Nadzarin Wok Nordin.

Deputy public prosecutor P Sarulatha, representing the prosecution, also confirmed the matter.

Akberdin, who appeared with Jagjit Singh, reiterated that Rosmah had also filed a review of the Federal Court’s refusal to recuse the judge who tried and convicted her.

“The main complaint is that the Federal Court erred in considering that the trial judge was in real danger of bias when there existed two judgments,” he said, adding that the application was made under Rule 137 of the Federal Court Rules 1995.

He said a case management would be held on April 3 to fix a date for the review hearing.

On March 3, a three-member Federal Court bench chaired by Justice Nordin Hassan unanimously rejected Rosmah’s appeal, ruling that trial judge Zaini Mazlan was not biased and that Rosmah did not suffer any miscarriage of justice.

Justices Che Ruzima Ghazali and Azimah Omar also sat on the bench.

Rosmah, the wife of former prime minister Najib Razak, had sought a retrial if her appeal was allowed.

On Sept 1, 2022, Zaini, now a Court of Appeal judge, dismissed a last-minute application by Rosmah to stop him from presiding over her case.

Rosmah claimed to have lost confidence in Zaini after a purported draft of his judgment was published by the late blogger, Raja Petra Kamarudin, prior to the decision date.

Zaini convicted Rosmah of soliciting RM187.5 million from former Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd managing director Saidi Abang Samsudin through her former aide, Rizal Mansor, as an inducement to help the company secure the solar project.

She was also convicted of receiving bribes amounting to RM5 million from Saidi, through Rizal, at Seri Perdana in Putrajaya on Dec 20, 2016, and another charge of receiving RM1.5 million from Saidi at Jalan Langgak Duta on Sept 7, 2017.

Zaini sentenced her to 10-year jail terms for each of the three charges but ordered that they run concurrently. He also ordered her to pay a RM970 million fine.

The court ruled that Rosmah should serve an additional 10 years in prison if she failed to pay the fine.