By Hidir Reduan Abdul Rashid | Malaysiakini
The Kuala Lumpur High Court will decide on Dec 19 whether Rosmah Mansor’s RM7 million money laundering and tax evasion case would be nullified.
Judge K. Muniandy is set to resume with the partly heard trial against the wife of incarcerated former Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in the event that her striking-out bid is denied.
The criminal court set the decision date after hearing oral submissions from Rosmah’s legal team – which includes counsel Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin and Amer Hamzah Arshad – and the prosecution team led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib.
The striking-out hearing first began on Dec 12 last year, after the partial hearing of her money laundering and tax evasion trial with prosecution witnesses taking the stand.
Rosmah’s lawyers contended that the 12 charges under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) and five counts under the Income Tax Act were baseless, defective, premature, and did not reveal any offence under the law.
However, prosecutors earlier today argued that the 17 criminal charges are valid under law and contained sufficient details to notify her of the offence she was accused of so that she can mount a proper defence.
Rosmah’s charges
The 72-year-old accused faces 12 money laundering charges involving RM7,097,750 and five counts of failing to declare her income to the Inland Revenue Board (IRB).
The offences were purportedly committed at Affin Bank Berhad, Bangunan Getah Asli branch, Ground Floor, 148 Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, between Dec 4, 2013, and June 8, 2017, and the IRB office at Kompleks Bangunan Kerajaan, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Halim, KL, between May 1, 2014, and May 1, 2018.
The money laundering charges are framed under section 4(1)(a) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, which are punishable with a jail term of up to 15 years and a fine of not less than five times the value of the unlawful activity’s proceeds or RM5 million, whichever is higher.
The tax evasion charges under section 77(1) of the Income Tax Act 1967 claimed that Rosmah failed to furnish returns of her income for the 2013 to 2017 assessment years to the IRB Director General on or before April 30, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 without reasonable excuse, in contravention of section 112 of the act.
Previously, Rosmah was also convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail and an RM970 million fine by the Kuala Lumpur High Court in a corruption case linked to the solar hybrid energy project for 369 rural schools in Sarawak.
However, the High Court allowed a stay on the execution of the sentence pending her appeal to the Court of Appeal to quash the guilty verdict as well as the jail term and fine.
