Bank manager tells of person in charge of Najib accounts, credit card payments

Former prime minister Najib Razak.

KUALA LUMPUR: An AmBank officer told the High Court today that former prime minister Najib Razak had authorised then SRC International director Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil to manage his five bank accounts.

R Uma Devi, who is the bank’s Jalan Raja Chulan manager, testifying in Najib’s SRC International trial, said the accounts were closed in March 2015.

She said Najib opened two accounts between Jan 13 and 18, 2011 and closed them in Aug 30, 2015.

The remaining three accounts, which were current accounts, were opened on July 31, 2013 and subsequently closed on March 9, 2015.

“Nik Faisal was appointed as the person authorised by Datuk Seri Najib to manage all his accounts. Nik Faisal was allowed to obtain the bank statements and authorise cheques above RM250,000 to be cleared,” she said, in reading her witness statement.

Nik Faisal was previously sought by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for investigations.

Uma also said Nik Faisal gave instructions to the bank on transferring money out of Najib’s three accounts.

Uma said RM82 million and RM12 million, from two of the accounts closed on August 2015, were later transferred to the other three accounts.

She told the court that a total of RM64 million was deposited, between Dec 26, 2014 and Jan 10, 2015, into Najib’s account, ending in 880.

Subsequently, sums of RM20 million, RM3 million, RM3.28 million, RM27 million and RM10 million were transferred out from this account between July 8, 2014 and Feb 10, 2015.

“Nik Faisal instructed us in a letter dated Aug 11, 2014 that from the RM3.28 million, RM449,000 was meant for a Visa Platinum credit card payment and the remaining RM2.8 million was for a MasterCard Platinum credit card payment,” Uma said, without elaborating on the payment details.

Uma said cheques were issued from an account ending in 906 to various individuals and organisations.

At this juncture, deputy public prosecutor Suhaimi Ibrahim told High Court judge Nazlan Ghazali that the prosecution would like to continue tomorrow.

Najib is facing six charges of money laundering and criminal breach of trust in the transfer of RM42 million to his account from SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB.

He is also accused of abusing his power as prime minister by giving government guarantees on SRC International’s RM4 billion loan from Retirement Fund Inc. - FMT