Najib's seriously flawed strategy to stay out of jail

The embattled former prime minister, Najib Razak has changed his strategy in his defence against accusation of wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal.

He has shifted his attention on every corner of the fight he is leading against the possibility to end up in jail for a long time.

Now, based on his lead defence attorney’s statements, Najib will pin the blame on Jho Low and is finding loopholes in the prosecution’s list of witnesses and arguments to prove the point.

Earlier, the famous lawyer who is facing a corruption case himself told the media there is a plot by SRC International CEO Nik Faisal to tarnish Najib’s name.

Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, in an article published by The Edge Markets, says Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil could be part of a conspiracy against the former premier, in cahoots with several other parties.

Nik Faisal has vanished from the scene after the results of the 14th General Elections were confirmed.

He flew to Indonesia and has since then disappeared from the country and is probably in a safe place, that is a place where he cannot be extradited.

Hence, he cannot defend himself against the conspiracy accusations while his absence weakens the lawyer’s assertion of a conspiracy by Nik Faisal. Only the person accused can come forward to deny this or attest to it.

Being on the run, there is little chance that he will break his silence to deny what Najib’s lawyer is saying.

To make things look plausible, the lawyer added another major character to the conspiracy plot.

Now he says Jho Low would have conspired against Najib too.

We now know that Nik Faisal is said to have been given the authorisation to ‘manage’ Najib’s personal account.

The main defence for Shafee is that Najib’s account was manipulated by unauthorised people.

He says outsiders, like Jho Low and others, and some people in the bank (referring to AmBank).

But this too has to be proven and only Jho Low’s arrest (which police says is imminent) will confirm or destroy the theory.

The question to ask is whether Nik Faisal or Jho Low would want to go to jail for a long time to save Najib?

With Najib’s defence putting all their arguments on the conspiracy theory and on the manipulation of Najib’s account by ‘outsiders’, a simple denial from the two accused will cause a trauma to the ex-PM.

We got to wait and see what other twists there is in Najib’s frail defence of his role in the 1MDB scandal.