KUALA LUMPUR: Former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi told the High Court in Najib Razak’s money laundering and abuse of power trial today that fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho gave him RM70,000 to help Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA) increase its share capital to RM1 billion.
He said TIA’s secretary Lim Poh Seng told him that they needed the money for this purpose.
“At that time, TIA did not have the money. I brought the issue up to Jho Low and he gave me the money, so we gave it to SSM,” he said, referring to the Companies Commission of Malaysia.
Shahrol was CEO of TIA before the Terengganu sovereign fund was taken over by the federal government.
He said he told Low that TIA was in urgent need of the money to proceed with the issuance of Islamic medium-term notes to raise RM5 billion for loans.
He said the TIA board of directors submitted an application on May 5, 2009 to increase TIA’s capital to RM1 billion through a billion shares worth RM1 each.
Of the one billion shares, the Ministry of Finance Incorporated had two special rights preference shares.
“He deposited the money into my bank account,” he said when questioned by ad hoc prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram on how the businessman had paid him the money.
When asked whether he returned the RM70,000 to Low after being reimbursed by TIA, Shahrol said he had tried.
“He told me ‘later, later’,” he added.
He said after a while, he stopped pressing Low on the matter and spent the money on charity instead.
“I sponsored a group of orphans to watch a show in Istana Budaya,” he said when asked by Sri Ram how he had spent the money.
The hearing continues before High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
Najib faces 25 counts of money laundering and abuse of power charges over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited in his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014. - FMT
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