Muhammad Shafee Abdullah claimed the prosecutors had framed the charge against Najib saying he ordered amendments to be made before the report was finalised.

“This was a draft report that had not been finalised. Tampering can only happen when the audit report is in its final stage,” he said outside the Sessions Court here.

He added that former auditor-general Ambrin Buang had said no one gave him any orders to amend the report on 1MDB which he had prepared.

“It seems that the prosecutors are making a U-turn on the charge against Najib and are now saying he only made amendments to the draft report,” he said.

Najib was accused of abusing his position by ordering amendments to the report on 1MDB, which had yet to be finalised and tabled to the Public Accounts Committee.

The offence was said to have taken place at the Prime Minister’s Office between Feb 22 and 26, 2016.

Former 1MDB executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy was accused of abetting Najib.

Both of them claimed trial at separate Sessions Courts today.

They also posted their RM500,000 bail, with both courts setting Jan 4, 2019 as the next mention date.

Auditor-General Madinah Mohamad previously said the final 1MDB audit report had been changed, claiming that Najib knew about it.

She said Najib and his former private secretary Shukry Salleh made the order to exclude mention of fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho’s presence at a 1MDB board meeting as well as a paragraph containing two versions of the 1MDB financial statement for the year ended 2014.

She said the reason given for the changes was to prevent the facts from being manipulated by opposition parties.