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• Court rejects move for Najib, private
• Court rejects Karpal's application
• High court rejects Karpal's application to recall PI Bala

©The Malaysian Insider (Used by permission)
by Shannon Teoh

SHAH ALAM, July 23 - Lawyer Karpal Singh's application to call Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib as witness and recall private investigator P. Balasubramaniam to the stand in the on-going Altantuya Sharibuu murder trial was thrown out this morning.

The presiding judge Datuk Mohd Zaki Yasin rejected Karpal's application under both limbs of Section 425 after deliberating in his chambers for half an hour. The first states that the court has discretion upon application by a party to the trial, which Zaki decided did not include a counsel on watching brief. (Karpal is holding a watching brief at the trial on behalf of Altantuya's family and the Mongolian government.)

The second was that it was to be exercised when the need arises anytime before a decision is pronounced. "This court will only exercise that right when the need arises."

Speaking to the press outside of the court immediately after, Karpal said he was surprised that head of the Civil Division in the Attorney-General's Chambers Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah who is leading the prosecution did not support it as the prosecution should have made the application in the first place but "instead I had to do it".

He reiterated that the police had said on July 19 that they would investigate everyone named in the two statutory declarations made by P. Balasubramaniam. "How can the court make a finding on the credibility of Bala if investigations are still being carried out? What happens if the a decision is made now but the police finds otherwise? It would be embarrassing to the court" he added.

Earlier, Tun Majid had made a preliminary objection based on precedents where statutory declarations, such as the two conflicting documents produced by P. Balasubramaniam, were considered hearsay and also that there was no locus standi allowing a party other than the prosecution or defence to make applications.

Karpal, however, cited that there is no local authority on the matter of locus standi and in fact, that locus standi is "foreign to criminal jurispudence". He did however cite a case in India where the father of the deceased had made a successful application in a criminal case.

Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin, counsel for Kpl Sirul Azhar (the co-accused), however, noted that the public prosecutor had supported that application and "in English Common law, it is in the purview of the prosecution as to which witness to call as part of the prosecution case."

He added that it would be a "usurpation of the jurisdiction of the public prosecutor" if the application was allowed without the prosecution's support. He too seemed bemused that the prosecution was not supporting it "for whatever reasons best known to the prosecution".

Wong Kian Keong, counsel for Abdul Razak Baginda, also told the presiding judge that allowing the application would "open the floodgates" and turn the trial into a private prosecution when, in fact, Karpal had already filed a civil suit on behalf of Altantuya's family.

Karpal added that he hoped the court would act when "the need arises. The court should not just sit mutely." He said that he might take this to the Court of Appeal.

The hearing continues with submissions from the prosecuting side.

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