NAJIB TRIAL | Sovereign wealth fund 1MDB was structured to give Najib Abdul Razak "ultimate power" but measures were taken to shield the then prime minister from criminal prosecution, former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi told the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.
For example, Shahrol said Najib issued a document allowing the 1MDB board of directors to make transactions involving a huge amount of money.
"Even though the document was issued, it did not diminish Najib's 'ultimate authority' on 1MDB as prime minister.
"Now that investigation has been conducted and what happened in 1MDB exposed, I realised that the shareholder minutes was deliberately issued by Najib at the time (Sept 16, 2009) to protect Najib from graft charges and shift the responsibility to the board of directors," he said.
Shahrol said he believed the minutes, designed to protect Najib, was done on the advice of fugitive businessperson Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
Testifying as the prosecution's ninth witness in Najib's 1MDB graft case, Shahrol (photo) claimed that paperwork was also made to look that decisions and proposals came from others when it allegedly originated from Najib.
He claimed that if action needed to be taken, instead of Najib initiating it, Low would ask for it to be proposed to Najib after which the then prime minister would accept the proposal.
An example, Shahrol said, was a letter he wrote to Najib and copied to, among others, then auditor-general Ambrin Buang, arguing against an audit of 1MDB when it was converted from Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA).
'Najib wanted letters written to him'
"The matter is said to be done on the basis of 'as is where is' and does not need an audit or due diligence by the Auditor-General's Department.
"Low had asked me to write this letter to Najib on the grounds that it is Najib's request to ensure that 1MDB no longer needs to be audited.
"I was not involved in the initial discussion in this matter, but I believe the contents of the letter had been first discussed between Low and Najib.
"Based on what I know now, I am convinced that the takeover of TIA (and conversion) into 1MDB on an 'as is where is basis' was a plan by Low, with Najib's blessing, to hide the misappropriation of the RM5 billion Islamic Medium Term Notes (IMTN) bond which was guaranteed by the government in May 2009," he said.
Likewise, Shahrol said when the Auditor-General's Department sought additional documents to conduct due diligence on 1MDB on Oct 5, 2010, Shahrol claimed Low (photo) gave him a letter which he was to send to Najib, purportedly on the former prime minister's instruction.
"This letter also sought Najib's agreement, as the finance minister representing the shareholder (of 1MDB) and as the board of advisers chairperson, that the Auditor-General's Department should only be furnished the audited financial statement ending March 31, 2010, without additional documents requested by the Auditor-General's Department," he said.
Reading from his 273-page witness statement, Shahrol said when TIA was transferred to the federal government, amendments were made to Article 68, Article 93 and Article 117 of the Memorandum and Articles of Association (M&A) to give ultimate power to Najib.
This was despite his formal position being that of the "board of advisory chairperson".
Najib is facing 25 charges of money laundering and abuse of power over the alleged misappropriation of RM2.28 billion from 1MDB.
The trial is being presided by Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah. - Mkini
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