I never met Najib, only Jho Low and Nik Faisal, says witness

 

Fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho told a bank officer that Najib Razak wanted to open accounts with AmBank while Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil was authorised to handle the accounts.

KUALA LUMPUR: A former AmBank officer told the Najib Razak 1MDB trial that she never met the former prime minister personally regarding his accounts in the bank.

Joanna Yu, a former relationship manager, said she only dealt with the accounts’ authorised person Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho.

She said it was Low who told her that Najib wanted to open accounts with AmBank.

The High Court previously heard that Najib opened two accounts – a savings account ending with 481, and a current account ending with 694 – on Jan 13, 2011. Both accounts were closed on Aug 26, 2013.

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Three other accounts – ending with 880, 906 and 898 – were opened on July 31, 2013 and closed on March 9, 2015.

Ad hoc prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram then asked Yu who was accountable for the transactions in the accounts, even if the transactions were done through Nik Faisal.

“Datuk Seri (Najib) is responsible,” she said.

Sri Ram: Despite the mandate, he (Najib as account holder) is still personally liable for it?

Yu: Yes

Strictest confidence

Yu also told the court that Low had requested AmBank to treat Najib’s accounts with the “strictest confidence”.

“I had enquired with our operations division if it was possible to have an account with two names to incorporate a code name.

“They confirmed that there was no problem with a code name as there were corporate project-based accounts that were referred to by their project name.

“I cannot remember who gave the code name of AmPrivate Banking-MR (for Najib’s 694 account),” she said.

Yu said it was her first time dealing with a customer like Najib, who had a code name attached to his account.

“Normally code names are assigned to certain corporate project accounts,” she added.

Yu also confirmed that a sum of US$20 million was deposited into Najib’s 694 account between Feb 24, 2011 and June 14, 2011.

She said the US$20 million came from an individual known as “Prince Faisal Turkey Bandar Al-Saud”, and that she asked Nik Faisal for some supporting documents to justify the transfer of funds. She told him that AmBank’s treasury department would need such documents when sending their report to Bank Negara Malaysia.

The latter then gave her a letter written by one “Prince Saud Abdulaziz Majid Al-Saud”.

“It was stated (in the letter) that a sum of US$100 million will be given as a ‘gift’ to Malaysia through Datuk Seri.”

She said the letter stated that the purpose of the donation was to recognise Malaysia’s contribution to the development of the Islamic world.

Najib is standing trial on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.

The hearing continues on Nov 7 before justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah. - FMT