EITHER YOU’RE LYING OR I’M LYING – NAJIB TELLS ZETI OVER RM2.6 BIL ‘DONATION’: TO SAVE HIMSELF, WHAT WON’T NAJIB DO

Najib Abdul Razak has maintained that former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akthar Aziz knew of the RM2.6 billion transferred into his personal account ahead of the 2013 general election.

“I respect Zeti for her sterling work as the Bank Negara governor when I was prime minister.

“However, I maintain she was informed of the incoming foreign donation deposits into my accounts and that she was aware of the deposits at that time.

“It is up to her if she wants to say that as Bank Negara governor at that time, she was not aware of the deposit from overseas that went into my bank account in the year 2013, which I later returned most of it to the same source a few months later,” the former premier told Malaysiakini this evening.

In a statement to Malaysiakini on Tuesday, Zeti denied having knowledge about the transfer of the colossal sum into Najib’s account.

“I wish to categorically state that this claim is false. I had no knowledge of this RM2.6 billion remitted into his account,” she had said.

Zeti also alleged that on July 3, 2015, she was called to the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya when the scandal erupted.

During this meeting, she accused Najib of asking her to issue a statement that he had done nothing wrong in his account.

“I informed him that I cannot issue such a statement because I did not have knowledge of transactions that had occurred in his account,” she said.

Zeti, who resigned in 2016 after serving as Bank Negara governor for 16 years, was responding to Najib’s remarks in an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini earlier.

“If Bank Negara is in the know of these funds and they had an inkling or some knowledge that there could be some doubts about the source of the funds, I expected them to tell me.

“But nothing of that sort happened. So I assumed all along that it was fine,” he said.

Quizzed again if Zeti did not raise any red flags, Najib replied: “No there was no comeback from Bank Negara. I assumed everything was fine.”

It was previously reported that Najib had told Umno leaders he had the documents from Bank Negara approving the transfer.

The former premier maintains that the RM2.6 billion was a donation from a Saudi royal member while the US Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that it originated from 1MDB.

MKINI