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Najib wins bid to inspect items seized from Pavilion apartment

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These include pieces of jewellery, handbags, watches and money in foreign currency.

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Free Malaysia Today
Police officers carry out the items seized during the raid on the Pavilion Residences apartment unit in May 2018.

KUALA LUMPUR:
The High Court here today allowed former prime minister Najib Razak’s application to inspect the items seized by the police from a high-end apartment unit here in May 2018.

Judge Muhammad Jamil Hussin gave the order for Najib to inspect the items – including watches, bags and sunglasses – after hearing arguments from the former prime minister’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and deputy public prosecutor Faten Hadni Khairuddin.

“The inspection is needed so that the applicant (Najib) can make his defence,” Jamil said, adding that Najib would be allowed to inspect the items together with a lawyer.

However, the court did not set a date for the inspection.

The same court had previously allowed Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, to inspect the items currently being held by Bank Negara Malaysia.

The government is seeking to forfeit over 12,000 items including jewellery, handbags, watches and money in foreign currency from Obyu Holdings Sdn Bhd on grounds that they are the subject of money laundering offences.

Shafee argued that the police had not followed procedure during the raid on May 17, 2018 as neither the apartment owner nor Najib was present.

“The police did not properly label the items they seized. They only labelled them as ‘A1 to A32’,” he added.

He also said that another court in a separate forfeiture proceeding had allowed them to inspect the seized items.

“We went to Bank Negara and we saw that every single bag had been destroyed by the police who wrote directly on the labels with magic marker,” he said.

In the same proceeding, lawyer David Gurupatham, representing Lebanese jeweller Global Royalty Trading SAL, said they were seeking an extension of time for the inspection order granted on March 13.

“My client is currently in the UK and he cannot come because our borders are still closed,” he said.

Faten later told reporters that Najib and Rosmah could inspect the items first while waiting for a representative from Global Royalty Trading to arrive and inspect the seized jewellery with them on another occasion.

The prosecution also told the court that they were not contesting the forfeiture application against the Pavilion Residences apartment.

Deputy public prosecutor Muhammad Shukri Hussain said they wanted to proceed with the forfeiture bid against the jewellery, watches, bags and cash amounting to over RM600 million found by the police in the unit.

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