KUALA LUMPUR: Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor has failed again in her attempt to disqualify High Court judge Justice Mohamed Zaini Mazlan from presiding over her RM7mil money laundering and tax evasion case.
In his brief decision yesterday, Justice Mohamed Zaini said this was Rosmah’s second attempt to get him to recuse himself from presiding over her case.
In her application, Rosmah raised the issue of danger that Justice Mohamed Zaini would be unduly influenced and may not be able to carry out his judicial function without being biased and partial.
The judge said he had dismissed the first application and the second, and the current application was considerably based on the same grounds as the first application; that Justice Mohamed Zaini is the presiding judge in Rosmah’s other solar hybrid corruption trial.
However, in the second application, Rosmah had included in her argument two other cases that Justice Mohamed Zaini has presided over; a 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)-linked forfeiture case where Rosmah was one of the respondents and the 1MDB audit tampering case involving her husband Datuk Seri Najib Razak and former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy.
“What the applicant had done in including these two additional cases was to add more colour to her application. It is, however, in essence, the same – as the grounds submitted are similar to the first application as it pertains to my involvement and decisions made in these cases.
“I must add that I was bemused that the applicant had mentioned the 1MDB forfeiture and 1MDB audit cases in her application. I had, in the 1MDB forfeiture case, dismissed the prosecution’s attempt to forfeit properties belonging to her,” Justice Mohamed Zaini said yesterday.
The 1MDB audit tampering case, on the other hand, did not concern Rosmah at all, he said.
He added that Rosmah’s arguments in respect of the 1MDB forfeiture and 1MDB audit tampering cases could have been canvassed in her first application as they were well within the applicant’s knowledge when the first application was made.
Justice Mohamed Zaini said there must be finality in litigation in that parties should not be allowed to litigate the same issues over and over again.
“The applicant’s application is therefore dismissed,” he said.
The court also allowed a stay application by Rosmah’s lawyer Datuk Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin on the money laundering trial pending Rosmah’s appeal of yesterday’s decision at the Court of Appeal.
This is after the prosecution, led by deputy public prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram, did not object to the defence’s stay application.
On Jan 11, Rosmah filed a second application to recuse the judge from presiding over her RM7mil money laundering and tax evasion trial.
On Dec 14 last year, Justice Mohamed Zaini, who is also the same judge in Rosmah’s solar hybrid trial, had dismissed Rosmah’s first application to disqualify him from hearing the money laundering and tax evasion case on grounds that Rosmah’s claims of her being “greatly prejudiced” in the case was unfounded.
In the money laundering and tax evasion case, Rosmah is facing 12 money laundering charges amounting to about RM7mil and five counts of failing to declare her income to the Inland Revenue Board.
In the solar hybrid trial, which is at the defence stage, Rosmah is accused of a charge of soliciting RM187.5mil and two counts of receiving bribes totalling RM6.5mil from Jepak Holdings’ former managing director Saidi Abang Samsudin, through her former aide Datuk Rizal Mansor, involving the RM1.25bil solar hybrid project in Sarawak.
Rosmah’s first attempt to recuse Justice Mohamed Zaini, which has gone to the appeal stage, is now fixed for case management on May 19 via Zoom proceeding.
Her other application to disqualify Sri Ram from prosecuting her money laundering case is fixed for mention before Justice Mohamed Zaini at the High Court on May 24.