KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) officer told the High Court in Najib Razak’s SRC International trial that an individual known as “Prince Saud Abdulaziz Al-Saud” whom he met in Riyadh claimed they could not record his witness statement as he enjoyed immunity due to his royal background.
Fikri Ab Rahim said “Prince Saud” however agreed to allow them to interview his legal representative, Mohamad Abdullah Al Koman, on behalf of him in MACC’s investigations into the four purported “donation” letters, signed by him, to the former prime minister.
“The statement was recorded on Nov 29, 2015 and the lawyer spoke to us about the letters that we wanted to verify with “Prince Saud”.
“We could not question him (Saud) and had to maintain our distance from him as part of the protocol,” he said, when answering questions from Najib’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, on meeting the Arab “prince” at a palace.
Fikri said “Prince Saud” spoke to the MACC officers in English. He introduced himself and showed them his passport for identification purposes. However, he did not allow MACC to make photocopies of his passport.
Previously, Fikri’s colleague Mohd Nasharudin Amir testified that five officials flew to Riyadh to meet “Prince Saud” as part of their investigations into the RM2.6 billion “donation” case.
The witness also told the court that two Malaysians, namely Tan Kim Loong and Selva Mookiah, were also present in the palace when MACC met “Prince Saud”.
Tan is an associate of fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho and is wanted for questioning in the 1MDB case.
To questions by ad-hoc prosecutor V Sithambaram on the authenticity of “Prince Saud’s” passport, Fikri said he did not know if the passport was fake.
Fikri also said MACC did not proceed to ask Abdullah further questions over his statement and confirmed that MACC did not obtain any documentary evidence from Tan or Abdullah for their investigations.
The hearing before High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali continues tomorrow (March 5).
Najib is facing six charges of money laundering and criminal breach of trust in the transfer of RM42 million from SRC International to his personal account.
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 Incorporated (KWAP). - FMT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.