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KUALA LUMPUR – The high court has set August 30 to decide on former prime minister’s wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor’s latest application to disqualify lead prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram from her graft case involving the RM1.25 billion solar hybrid project in Sarawak.
According to FMT, judge Datuk Kamal Md Shahid said he would deliver his judgement via email to all respective parties on the given date.
This comes after Rosmah had filed an application on June 24 seeking to declare the appointment of Gopal as the ad hoc prosecutor, through three letters of appointment or a fiat dated July 8, 2020, May 11, and May 21, 2021, as unlawful.
She also argued that Sri Ram’s appointment as an ad hoc prosecutor was only related to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and had nothing to do with her corruption case of the Sarawak-based project.
Rosmah also sought for the entire prosecution proceedings of the solar trial which took place from Nov 15, 2018 until the end of the defence stage, to be declared invalid and void.
In her application, Rosmah had named the attorney-general, the government, and Sri Ram as respondents.
Representing Rosmah in court today were her lawyer Datuk Akberdin Abdul Kader and Datuk Jagjit Singh while Sri Ram was present to represent himself while senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan was representing the attorney general chambers.
Shamsul had argued that Rosmah’s application was an abuse of the court process, referring to her similar application in the criminal high court that was duly rejected.
“This application, in essence, is seeking to review the decision of another high court,” he said as quoted by FMT.
Gopal also posted that Rosmah’s application would see an overlap in judgment as it is “asking the court to review another court’s decision”.
Akberdin however argued that Rosmah’s application had merits and should be allowed to legally challenge Sri Ram’s appointment.
Rosmah is charged with soliciting RM187.5 million and two counts of receiving bribes of RM6.5 million from Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd’s former managing director, Saidi Abang Samsuddin, through her former special officer, Datuk Rizal Mansor.
For the second charge, Rosmah is alleged to have dishonestly received RM1.5 million from Saidi for the same purpose at her residence in Jalan Langgak Duta, Taman Duta, on September 7, 2017.
She is also facing a third charge of accepting gratification of RM5 million from Saidi through Rizal for helping Jepak Holdings secure the same project on December 20, 2016, at the Seri Perdana residence in Putrajaya between January 2016 and September 2017 – The Vibes, August 11, 2022