VETERAN newsman Datuk A Kadir Jasin has one piece of advice for those up in arms over Datuk Seri Najib Razak going to jail: think of it like a football match.
In a Facebook post today, Kadir said the former prime minister’s SRC International trial and subsequent appeals at the Court of Appeal and Federal Court could more or less be compared to three football games.
The first match was in the High Court with a judge as the “referee”. In that match, the public prosecutor was the “attacker” and “kicked” first with their evidence against Najib.
“The more kicks the better, more so if it is a fatal kick,” Kadir noted. “Then Najib’s team would defend.”
Kadir said the role of Najib’s “captain”, Tan Sri Mohamed Shafee Abdullah, was to scrutinise the gestures, tactics and techniques of the other team’s captain.
“When there was an opportunity, they tackled, but more often pretended to fall to get a penalty kick or at least delay the game,” Kadir quipped.
By the time the first half-time ended, Kadir continued, the public prosecutor’s team already scored two “goals”.
In the second half, Najib’s team was told to attack; to win, they had to score three goals.
However, the Pekan MP’s team could not break through the public prosecutor’s defence and started resorting to “dirty plays”, “low kicks”, “pretend falls to get a penalty kick’, or worse, “delaying the game”, Kadir claimed.
“However, despite all this, they did not score a single goal,” Kadir noted. “So Najib’s team lost.”
Two more chances
Nevertheless, the law gives Najib two more chances to play in the game. He first appealed his case at the Court of Appeal, where three judges convened.
Here, Najib’s team had an advantage as they were the attackers and could also determine the speed of the game. Kadir said it was almost like a “home game”.
However, Najib’s team again failed to make a single goal by the end of the match.
“Najib still had one more chance at the Federal Court – the highest court in the land. Five judges were the referees,” Kadir said.
“This is where the final match will take place to determine whether Najib won or lost. If he wins, he is free. If he loses, he goes to jail.”
Najib’s team was the attackers once more. But as “we all know”, they failed to score any goals despite “changing the captain” and using tactics like appealing for “time off” because their players were sick, abroad and campaigning for by-elections, Kadir said.
“This time round, they were not allowed to take in an imported player, the Queen’s Counsel,” he added.
“Sacred oaths and prayers not considered”
As for taking sacred oaths, praying or even calling bomohs (shamans), that was “another story” as the court did not take such matters into account.
Kadir also insinuated that these were silly defenses to take, pointing out that there was no team or football match that did not ask for the help of shamans and charmers when he was a young lad playing ball.
“The crocodile charmer sometimes turned into a ball charmer,” he recalled in jest.
In any case, when Najib lost at the Federal Court, he exhausted the appeals processes available to him in the law and had no choice but to go to jail, Kadir concluded.
Last Tuesday (Aug 23), the Federal Court rejected Najib’s final appeal in his RM42 mil SRC International corruption case and upheld his RM210 mil fine and 12-year jail sentence. He is currently serving time in the Kajang jail.
In July 2020, the High Court found Najib guilty of seven charges of power abuse, criminal breach of trust and money laundering in the case. His appeal to the Court of Appeal was rejected last December, prompting Najib to go to the apex court.
The case has been nothing short of bizarre. In recent months, he insisted that a Queen’s Counsel from the UK take on his case, changed his lawyers at the 11th hour (and later cried injustice) and even requested the chief justice to recuse herself from the case.
All such requests were binned. – Aug 27, 2022
