NAJIB Razak’s lawyers will today formally receive the remaining communication transcripts from devices seized by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in a raid on Ambank’s branch in Jalan Raja Chulan, Kuala Lumpur, on July 6, 2015.
The transcripts include chat logs from a BlackBerry belonging to former AmBank relationship manager Joanna Yu, whose communications with wanted financier Low Taek Jho were the focus of the SRC International Sdn Bhd trial last week.
Today, prosecutors will call up Shuzairizman Shuib, a digital analyst with BNM’s Financial Intelligence and Enforcement Department, who previously testified in the trial.
The central bank officer will formally produce hundreds of pages of documents that had not been tendered as evidence.
Copies of the documents were made available to the defence last week to allow the former prime minister’s lawyers to prepare for the further cross-examination of Yu, who is expected to be called up today, making it her fifth appearance on the witness stand.
On Thursday, she was questioned on the extent of her relationship with Low. Although communications with the Penang-born businessman were frequent, she denied carrying out instructions beyond what was legally stipulated within her job scope.
She was questioned about a text conversation with Najib’s mandate holder, former SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, in which she referred to Low as “boss”.
Yu, the prosecution’s 54th witness, maintained that she did not carry out transactions on Low or Nik Faisal’s instructions.
She received a text message from Low on March 3, 2015 telling her to clear the chat logs on her BlackBerry Messenger, but did not follow the instructions, telling the court that she did not know how to delete the data.
Yu said she knew Low from as far back as 2008, before 1Malaysia Development Bhd was formed. Low was, at the time, attempting to raise funds for Majestic Masterpiece Sdn Bhd.
During this period, Yu also met Nik Faisal, during a deal in which Saudi oil firm PetroSaudi International Ltd sought to acquire Utama Banking Group Bhd, held by Majestic Masterpiece.
Low was also made a special adviser to the Terengganu Investment Authority, a state wealth fund that was taken over by Minister of Finance Inc in 2009 and renamed 1MDB, she testified.
She denied passing information to Wall Street Journal journalists Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, who ran a series of articles that exposed the alleged siphoning of public funds from 1MDB.
Yu said she did not conspire with Low to defraud SRC International of millions.
Defence lawyers previously suggested that bankers had worked with Low, possibly with the help of SRC International senior executives, to pilfer the government-linked entity.
Najib’s charges in this case are linked to RM4 billion in loans issued to SRC International in 2011 and 2012, for which he is accused of receiving RM42 million in his personal accounts in 2014 and 2015.
The 66-year-old faces three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money-laundering and one count of abuse of power.
He is represented by a dozen lawyers, led by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah. Attorney-General Tommy Thomas leads the prosecution, while Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali presides over the trial.
The Malaysian Insight brings you today’s proceedings live:
5.19pm: Court adjourns for the day. It will resume on Wednesday.
5.14pm: The defence continues going through chat logs between Yu and Low.
4.53pm: Harvinderjit suggests that, based on the chats, there were numerous instances in which cheques were issued without enough funds in Najib’s account. Yu agrees with the suggestion that Low was directly involved in the funds being replenished.
4.51pm: Harvinderjit suggests that everyone, including Nik Faisal, was acting on Low’s instruction. He brings up a chat with Nik Faisal in which Yu tells him that RM3.5 million was needed in the account. Nik Faisal then replies Yu with, “Please tell someone”. That “someone”, Harvinderjit suggests, is Low.
4.29pm: Harvinderjit suggests that Low gave instructions about the account, and that Nik Faisal merely signs off on it. Yu says this was the case sometimes.
She says she doesn’t know for sure if Nik Faisal was merely following Low’s orders.
She reiterates that only Nik Faisal could sign off on instructions as he was the accounts’ mandate holder.
4.21pm: Court resumes after a short break, with Harvinderjit continuing his cross-examination of Yu.
He is now addressing letters in which Nik Faisal was made mandate holder for Najib’s accounts.
3.55pm: Harvinderjit asks Yu about Najib’s signature. He asks her if she was aware that Low and his affliates all used e-signatures. Harvinderjit suggests that she never received any hard copy of documents with Najib’s true signature. Yu agrees.
He also tells her that in these documents, Nik Faisal’s name is added by pen. Yu agrees.
Harvinderjit says that one cannot discount the possibility of the letter being signed by someone else or that Najib signed it without Nik Faisal’s name on the document.
3.27pm: Harvinderjit suggests that Low told Yu that three new accounts were to be opened in Najib’s name for political and Yayasan donations.
She said she does not recall this.
Harvinderjit suggests that when opening these three accounts, Yu had prepared the account-opening forms and dispatched them to the office. The forms were then returned with signatures.
Yu says that there is a probability that this did indeed happen, but that she does not recall it.
3.21pm: Harvinderjit says about US$681 million was deposited into Najib’s account in 2013 from Tanore Finance Corp. Upon instruction, the account holder Najib returned US$620 million to Tanore Finance and a “new account”.
Yu agrees with this. Harvinderjit suggests that these instructions came from Low. To this, Yu disagrees.
3.09pm: Harvinderjit tells the court that Jho Low had met Yu at Kampachi restaurant, where he had booked a private room. It is at this lunch that Yu had handed over chequebooks for Najib’s current account to Low.
A few days after the lunch, Yu messages Low to tell him not to write any cheques yet.
Low had also given her the old chequebooks back with instructions for her to “destroy the chequebooks”. Joanna tells the court that she did not destroy them.
Harvinderjit: Why didn’t you tell him that you couldn’t destroy the chequebooks?
Yu: I followed the bank’s procedure. According to procedure, we don’t destroy chequebooks.
2.47pm: Trial resumes after lunch.
Harvinderjit starts by going through the chats Yu had with Low.
12.10pm: Yu says US$681 million was deposited into Najib’s account in 2013 from Tanore Finance Corp, a firm that will be a central focus in Najib’s coming 1MDB trial.
Harvinderjit suggests that the transfers were donations, referring to support letters by former AmBank managing director Cheah Tek Kuang to former central bank chairman Zeti Akhtar Aziz. Yu agrees.
11.33pm: Harvinderjit is trying to ascertain if the transactions are from Saudi Arabia.
11.15pm: They are going through credit transfers of Najib’s “694” current account.
Sithambaram asks Judge Nazlan if there is any relevance to the defence’s line of questioning.
Harvinderjit replies that it is important and Nazlan allows it to continue.
10.35am: Trial resumes after a five-minute recess with Yu back on the stand. They are going through credit transfers involving Najib’s current account ending with “694”.
10.07am: The witness is released from the stand.
9.58am: Defence counsel Harvinderjit begins cross-examination of the witness. Ranjit says his client was of the opinion that Najib received money that belonged to other people and he was not fit to be prime minister.
9.56am: Prosecutor V. Sithambaram interjects, and tells Nazlan that Ranjit is a necessary witness and the prosecution will also file a submission.
9.55am: Lead defence lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah tells judge Nazlan Ghazali that for purposes of prima facie, this witness is irrelevant because of provisions in the Evidence Act and the defence will make a submission.
9.54am: Ranjit says Ling dropped his counter claim when Najib withdrew the suit.
9.52am: In Najib’s affidavit in the case, he admitted that RM42 million originating from SRC International had made its way into his accounts without his knowledge through two intermediaries.
9.46am: The comments at the centre of the suit were published by a news portal on October 3, 2015. The report quoted Ling’s statements against Najib during an event at Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.
In his statement of claim filed on October 27, 2015, Najib sought damages and an injunction to stop Ling from further speaking, publishing or causing to be published defamatory words against him. Najib also sought an order for an apology by Ling to be published in newspapers or magazines to be identified by the former.
However, the former prime minister withdrew the suit last year.
9.42am: Ranjit Singh says his client was singled out by Najib for legal action even though others, including Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had said far worse things at the time. This was why Ling filed a counterclaim, he says.
9.32am: He is being asked about his defence and counterclaim in Ling’s defamation suit brought by Najib.
9.19am: Today’s trial begins with the prosecution’s 55th witness, Ranjit Singh Harvinder Singh, who served as former politician Ling Liong Sik’s lawyer.
Najib may have thought RM42 million was donation, says defence lawyer
NAJIB Razak may have been under the impression that the RM42 million in his accounts were part of donations due to transactions amounting to hundreds of millions into other accounts a few years prior, a court heard today.
Najib is facing seven criminal charges for receiving RM42 million in two AmBank private accounts in December 26, 2014 and February 10, 2015. Those current accounts, ending with 880 and 906 were opened in 2013.
Defence lawyers, referring to documents and communication transcripts, have been asking former AmBank relationship manager Joanna Yu to verify transactions into Najib’s current account ending with the numbers “694”.
They included RM100 million received in four tranches in 2011 and US$681 million received from Tanore Finance Corp in 2013.
Defence counsel Harvinderjit Singh also referred to the transactions via chat logs between Yu and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, to which ad hoc prosecutor V. Sithambaram objected.
Sithambaram questioned the relevance of the transactions prior to the ones that Najib is being charged with. He said the transactions that Harvinderjit were referring to involved funds linked to 1Malaysia Development Bhd, adding that to continue that line of questioning would be a “waste of time”.
He said the funds were “used up well before the charges.”
Harvinderjit said the transactions indicated that Low had been in communication with the bank just as the transactions occurred.
He argued that funds entering Najib’s newer accounts appeared to have originated from the same source.
“Even if it is used up, that is not the point. The point is that my client, in his mind thought it was a donation. This is relevant because his state of mind is where we are going with this.”
Earlier, Harvinderjit also asked Yu on use of the code names which Low applied for currencies – which were pies for US dollars, satay for ringgit and chips for pound sterling.
Yu said the nomenclatures were chosen by Low, to which Harvinderjit suggested that chips was a reference to fish and chips.
Earlier, Yu verified that the US$100 million transactions in 2011 came with support letters from Saudi Arabia.
She also verified that US$681 million was deposited into Najib’s account in 2013 from Tanore Finance Corp, a firm that will be a central focus in Najib’s coming 1MDB trial.
Harvinderjit suggested that the US$620 million, being underutilised, were returned, to which Yu agreed. During the repayment process, Yu said AmBank was informed by Bank Negara to be wary of moving the foreign exchange market when purchasing US currency in that amount.
AmBank manager R. Uma Devi told the court in April that a total of RM1.9 billion was credited into Najib’s account ending with the numbers “694” from 2011 to 2013.
Portions of the money were purportedly donations from a Prince Faisal al Turki as well as the Saudi Arabia finance ministry. Uma testified that Bank Negara was informed of the purposes of the transactions.
The amounts included RM304 million in 2011 and RM756 million in 2012 purportedly from Prince Faisal and another RM324 million purportedly from the Saudi ministry.
Defence lawyers have suggested that Low has manipulated Najib’s accounts, along with the help of others, to defraud SRC International.
Najib faces three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money-laundering and one count of abuse of power. The 66-year-old faces 20 years imprisonment if convicted.
– https://www.themalaysianinsight.com
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