For years, Najib administration had been rubbishing the Wall Street Journal’s exposure of money laundering in the 1MDB scandal. The former prime minister had also played down the role of his partner-in-crime, Jho Low (full name: Low Taek Jho), in plundering billions from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad sovereign wealth fund.
Ironically and amusingly, Najib’s powerful lawyers have to now depend on the “Billion Dollar Whale” book written by the WSJ correspondents, Tom Wright and Bradley Hope. Attorney Harvinderjit Singh read out in court excerpts from several WSJ reports and the book chronicling the 1MDB scandal and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho’s role in it.
Najib’s lawyers have requested several documents to defend their client, but at the same time told the court that they were not admitting that the contents of the book and reports were true. In short, Najib’s team of top lawyers is “cherry-picking” whatever contents of the book that are favourable to the disgraced former leader of Malaysia.
Not only has the defence indirectly admitted the credibility of the “lies” spewed by the Wall Street Journal, and Sarawak Report for that matter, they have also produced the “Billion Dollar Whale” in court as testimony that crooked Najib had been a victim of a scam. They wanted detailed transcripts of the conversation between Jho Low and Joanna Yu to be produced.
The plan was to establish that Jho Low and Joanna Yu, Najib’s relationship liaison manager at Ambank, were the culprits. Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, lead counsel of Najib Razak, claimed the defence team already has copies of BlackBerry messages of Joanna Yu. And if the prosecution is unable to produce the document, there would be “trouble”.
Shafee said the transcript was a vital piece of evidence for the defence team – “It is a very important matter. If they (the prosecution) are trying to hide it, then it would be the end of them. They cannot hide it as it has been raised everywhere, including by The Wall Street Journal and Sarawak Report. If it has gone missing, there would be big trouble.”
It seems Najib’s so-called hotshot lawyer has been reduced to relying on articles published in the WSJ and the book detailing transcripts of the conversation between Jho Low and Joanna, where the duo discussed how to conceal information concerning Najib’s account – obviously a trick called “plausible deniability” to protect the PM. So the new mission is this – to prove that Najib was a victim of a conspiracy by Jho Low and his gang.
Besides Joanna Yu, the defence team has demanded all communication between Jho Low and others included Nik Faisal Arif Kamil, Jerome Lee Tak Loong, Terrance Geh Choh Heng, Jasmine Loo, Shahrol Azral Ibrahim, Mohamed Azhar Osman Khairuddin, Ismee Ismail, Suboh Mohd Yassin, and See Yoh Peng – a fishing expedition tactic.
Attorney Shafee declares – “My client does not deal with his account himself. He was misled and is a victim.” So the line has been drawn. Najib was a good and honest person. He was misled, tricked, scammed, cheated, swindled, conned, lied, deceived, swindled, exploited, duped, hoodwinked, fooled, misguided, bamboozled and whatnot by a group of scammers led by Jho Low.
The game plan was to convince the judge, the people, and even the US Department of Justice, that Najib was actually a stupid prime minister – and hopes judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali will be too stupid to realize that Najib is actually pretending his stupidity. Call Najib a sucker or whatever, but his lawyers desperately need the judge to believe that the ex-PM was really that dumb.
Yes, there’s little room for Najib to wriggle out of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power trial in the SRC International Sdn Bhd after the trial of the century entered its fourth day on April 17. Hotshot lawyer Shafee can no longer dispute the overwhelming evidence of the money trail from SRC International to subsidiary companies Gandingan Mentari Sdn Bhd and Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd and into Najib’s accounts.
Two officers of Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank of Malaysia) have already testified about their raid at Ambank and Affin Bank on July 6, 2015, retrieving details about the accounts owned by Najib Razak, SRC International, Gandingan Mentari and Ihsan Perdana. The despicable man had received RM42 million in three tranches of payments of RM27 million, RM5 million and RM10 million.
A fifth witness, AmBank cheque processing senior manager Badrul Hisam Mohamad confirmed yesterday (April 18) that a total of 15 cheques amounting to RM10.77 million (RM10,776,514) were issued by Najib during the month of January and February 2015 via his personal AmBank and AmBank Islamic accounts. He also confirmed 17 cheques worth nearly RM30 million were issued by several AmBank accounts.
Najib’s defence team tried to disqualify a sixth prosecution witness from testifying yesterday (April 18), but was rejected. Zulkarnain Mohamad testified that his company ABS Trend Master Sdn Bhd had received a RM100,000 cheque for works carried out in Najib’s residence at Jalan Langgak Duta – including the building of a dry kitchen, clothes cabinet and pantry.
The seventh prosecution witness, plumbing company owner Mohammad Zakariyya Zearat Khan said he was hired to install a 12,000 litre water tank, due to the house having frequent water disruptions. His company Mox (M) Sdn Bhd was paid with a cheque for RM56,500. Ambank manager Badrul Hisam Mohamad has also confirmed cheques made out to ABS Trend master (RM100,000) and Moz (RM56,500).
The burning question is – will the judge believe that Najib was so stupid that he did not know the legitimacy of the RM42 million transferred into this account, but miraculously was clever enough to issue cheques for his home renovations?He had also issued cheques for UMNO divisions, not to mention a RM3.5 million cheque to another of this hotshot lawyer, Hafarizam Harun.
The cheque to Mr Hafarizam’s legal firm – Hafarizam Wan & Aisha Mubarak – hit a snafu when the court was told how instead of RM3.5 million, only RM3,500 was transferred by Najib into the law firm’s account on Feb 12, 2015 due to an input error made by the receiving bank, namely the CIMB Bank branch at the Putra World Trade Center (PWTC).
Well, as comical as it may sound, the supposedly dumb Najib Razak was somehow smart enough to pay the balance to his lawyer through the Real-time Electronic Transfer of Funds and Securities System (RENTAS), as testified by AmBank cheque processing senior manager Badrul Hisam Mohamad. So, he can be fabulously dumb at one moment, but would regain his intelligence at another moment.
In January this year, a total of 145 mule account holders were detained following a three-week nationwide crackdown against scammers. The police said – “The basic modus operandi for mule accounts are large sum of money will be transferred into the account and will be withdrawn soon after. The accounts were used for various cyber-crimes, including Macau Scam, loan scams, and e-commerce scams.”
Those detained gave multiple explanations such as being “duped” into being mule account holders, including claiming that their banking information was misused when they borrowed from loan sharks, or giving their bank account and ATM details to new acquaintances they met online. Some even claimed that they lost their wallets, which contained their ATM cards and other banking details.
Is Najib’s band of top lawyers trying to prove that their client, the 6th Prime Minister of Malaysia and the Finance Minister from 2009 to 2018, was as dumb as those 145 mule account holders so much so that he had been scammed by Jho Low and his gang for years? Hotshot lawyer Shafee should stop insulting the people’s intelligence with such cock and bull story.
Even if the judge is too stupid to believe Najib’s incredible stupidity, there’s one problem. The serial liar has been telling all and sundry that the money discovered in his account were donations. He had even released partial documents which he claimed as proof that Saudi Prince Abdul Aziz Al-Saud had indeed donated hundreds of millions of Ringgit to him.
How could a donation story suddenly become a Macau Scam? It would definitely be fun to see if the judge believes Najib was really clueless about being conned, but was super-smart to detect some missing chocolate in his fridge after police raided his home last year. Attorney Shafee should stop consuming too much toddy before going to court.
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