Playing For Time

• 18 December 2018
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Ex PM and ex UMNO boss Najib Razak has failed in his latest bid to delay or impede his trial for multiple offences in connection with SRC. He must have known, or been advised, that he was wasting his time, and public money, in attempting to challenge the appointment of the lead prosecutor at his coming trial.

Since he, and his advisers, must have known that their application was a blatant waste of the time of the Court, and had no prospect whatever of succeeding, the question is why did he proceed with it?

Was it just a routine desperate attempt to delay, if only for a short time, the wheels of justice? That seems the most likely explanation and, after all, the whole world knows that Najib has the financial means, using stolen public money, to indulge in every possible legal manoeuvre.

If, as should be the case, he was sitting in a remand cell awaiting trial, there would be no incentive for him to try to delay court proceedings.

Or is there more than meets the eye in all this?  Given that he must have known his application was without merit and would inevitably fail was this an attempt to prepare the ground for an appeal post-conviction? Clearly he must be seeking any possible way out of the path to prison and might be foolish enough to think that an acquittal on procedural grounds would see him able to resume political activity?

If so, a pipe dream.