PUTRAJAYA, Dec 26 — The High Court said today it would be “pure fantasy” to believe that 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) officers subordinate to former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak would willingly conspire against a sitting premier alongside fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.

Justice Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah said the officers could only have acted on Low’s instructions regarding 1MDB if they genuinely believed he was acting on Najib’s orders or that his instructions were effectively endorsed by the former prime minister.

Sequerah, now a Federal Court judge who previously presided over the 1MDB trial at the High Court, was reading out the court’s findings during the decision hearing earlier.

“As the court found earlier and to place matters in their proper perspective, it must be appreciated that the accused, by virtue of the provisions of Articles 68, 93 and 117 of the company’s memorandum and articles of association (M&A), and his combined position as both prime minister and finance minister, stood at the very apex of the decision-making process with regard to matters in 1MDB.

“To entertain the belief that officers subordinate to him in the hierarchy would willingly and knowingly conspire against a sitting prime minister of the day together with Jho Low, who did not even hold an official position in 1MDB, would be to stretch the imagination into the realms of pure fantasy,” Sequerah said.

“The only reasonable means by which they would entertain instructions of Low with regard to the affairs of 1MDB involving colossal sums of money would be if they held a genuine belief that Low was acting upon the instructions of the accused, or carried out whatever instructions were given by Low in the true belief that they bore the imprimatur of the accused.”

Sequerah also noted that the fact Najib and Low knew each other was no mere coincidence, citing photographic evidence of the two men together on vacation on separate occasions in the past.

He said the defence had previously asked the court to reassess the credibility of certain prosecution witnesses, whose testimonies regarding the accused’s role in the criminal charges remained consistent throughout the trial.

“After hearing the evidence of the defence and juxtaposing it with the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, I do not find anything in the defence’s evidence to displace the findings made at the conclusion of the prosecution case,” he said.

Sequerah added that even after extensive cross-examination, the prosecution witnesses’ testimonies remained credible, and the court found their accounts of the accused’s interactions with Low in 1MDB matters formed a consistent pattern that was far too coherent to be dismissed as coincidence.

“Once again, I repeat what was held at the end of the prosecution case that, in the final analysis, these impugned witnesses are not on trial, and notwithstanding allegations levelled against them, I find that the evidence in respect of the main facts and issues in the trial is capable of belief.

“Accordingly, I see no reason why appropriate weight ought not be attached to their testimonies in order to assist this court in coming to findings of fact and making the necessary inferences,” he said.

In this case, Najib is alleged to have misused his positions in the government and 1MDB to obtain RM2.22 billion for himself, and to have laundered money by receiving, spending and transferring funds belonging to the company.

Under the four charges of abuse of power, Najib is accused of using his three positions — as prime minister, finance minister and chairman of 1MDB’s board of advisers — to obtain financial benefits totalling RM2.22 billion for himself.

He also faces 21 charges of allegedly laundering the illicit funds through his personal AmIslamic Bank account.