KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s lawyer complained that the Man on the Run documentary on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) amounts to contempt of court amid the former prime minister’s ongoing 1MDB trial, and wants video streaming service Netflix to stop showing this documentary.
Before the 1MDB trial could resume this morning, Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah highlighted the contents of this 1MDB documentary, which he said started airing on Netflix on January 5 and that he had only managed to view it last night.
“But having seen this, Yang Arif, it’s about almost two hours’ programme, so I saw it right up until two o’clock in the morning. The programme, Yang Arif, was extremely sub judice and contemptuous,” Shafee told the High Court today.
Shafee went on to read out excerpts from the 1MDB documentary, such as interviewees’ remarks about Najib and now-fugitive Low Taek Jho about 1MDB.
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Shafee claimed he has listed about 160 of such excerpts but had only cited a few to show how contemptuous and sub judice the matters in the 1MDB documentary are.
Shafee then urged deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib to also quickly view the 1MDB documentary and to then “take the matter to attorney-general, to the MCMC as well as the Home Ministry that this programme be taken off from air in Netflix, which they can do, because this is completely contemptuous, over and above it being sub judice”.
“And the AG being the fountain of justice and the person who most guards the integrity of process in court, I think it’s his bounden duty to take immediate action,” Shafee said.
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Akram then said he only got to know about this documentary this morning and has not viewed it, adding that he will first view it before seeing whether he has to report it to the attorney-general and get further instructions from the attorney-general.
Shafee added that Najib has given him instructions to take legal action against former attorney-general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas and Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown over their comments in the 1MDB documentary.
“Separately, I’ve been instructed to take contempt action against Tan Sri Tommy Thomas and defamation action against Clare Rewcastle-Brown,” he said.
The Man on the Run documentary on 1MDB has been made available in Malaysia as early as October.
It was released in cinemas in Singapore on October 5, and was screened in Malaysia’s cinemas on October 19.
MORE TO COME
