KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 — A total of RM19.3 million in 28 cheques was deposited into Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia’s CIMB account from August 2021 to November 2022, a banker confirmed in former prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin’s trial today.
Menara CIMB KL Sentral bank branch manager Lee Hui Nee, 58, was testifying as the second prosecution witness in Muhyiddin’s corruption and money laundering trial at the High Court.
Lee today verified all the RM19.3 million cheque deposits, based on the cheques and Bersatu’s CIMB bank statements.
Out of the 28 cheques to Bersatu, four of them were CIMB cheques from Azman Yusoff totalling RM4 million, while Mamfor Sdn Bhd issued a Bank Muamalat cheque dated September 10, 2021 for RM1 million.
In this trial, Muhyiddin has been accused of abusing his power as the prime minister then and as Bersatu president to obtain bribes totalling RM225.3 million from three companies and one individual (Bukhary Equity Sdn Bhd, Nepturis Sdn Bhd, Mamfor Sdn Bhd and Azman Yusoff) for his “associate”, namely his party Bersatu.
The prosecution is also seeking to prove that Muhyiddin committed money laundering by receiving illegal funds totalling RM120 million and RM75 million deposited into Bersatu’s CIMB account, and RM5 million deposited into Bersatu’s AmBank account.
Asked by deputy public prosecutor Datuk Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin on whether she remembered the rough total of money which entered Bersatu’s CIMB account, Lee said it was in the “tens of millions” and confirmed that these funds had all been deposited after December 1, 2020.
Asked if CIMB had submitted suspicious transaction reports (STR) when tens of millions entered Bersatu’s account, Lee initially said she could not confirm this as STRs are confidential information that cannot be shared.
Wan Shaharuddin then said everyone including the court and Muhyiddin would want to know and urged her to disclose for fairness purposes, with Lee then replying: “For transactions that are unusual, very large amount, STRs will be raised.”
When Wan Shaharuddin asked if STRs were issued specifically in this case involving Bersatu, Lee confirmed there were such STRs but did not specify when or how many STRs were made.
Later when asked by deputy public prosecutor Mahadi Jumaat on why she had filed an STR on Bersatu’s account, Lee said the bank’s system would show “red flags” if there are accounts with a high volume of transactions that are inconsistent with the account’s profile, and that the branch would then review the account and file an STR to CIMB’s headquarters.
Confirming that her branch did make STRs to CIMB’s headquarters, she said the branch does not have knowledge of what happened next as STRs are confidential matters that would be dealt with between CIMB’s headquarters and Bank Negara Malaysia.
Typically, CIMB's headquarters would submit STRs to Bank Negara Malaysia.
Mahadi then asked why she felt the deposits of money were inconsistent with Bersatu’s account profile, with Lee then saying “because the frequency and amount is very high”.
Later when asked by Muhyiddin’s lawyer Datuk Amer Hamzah Arshad, Lee confirmed she would not know how many STRs had been issued by her bank branch to CIMB headquarters on Bersatu’s account before she joined this branch in 2022.
But Lee confirmed to Amer that she personally knows whether there is any STR prepared by CIMB against Bersatu on its bank account “because we have our own branch record”.
Lee agreed that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) did not ask her about any STRs or ask her to show any STR against Bersatu during its investigation and when it recorded her statement, also confirming that today was the first time the prosecution had asked her about the STRs.
She agreed she cannot confirm if Bank Negara Malaysia had taken any action or decided there was no issue with Bersatu’s CIMB account, reiterating that STRs are dealt between CIMB’s headquarters and the central bank.
Confirming that a bank could be penalised for not raising STRs to BNM, Lee agreed with Amer that a bank would raise an STR when there is a huge amount coming into a bank account out of an “abundance of caution”.
She agreed with Amer’s suggestion that STRs could sometimes be issued because of the sum involved and not necessarily because something is illegal.
When Amer suggested that the fact that a bank branch issued an STR to the bank’s headquarters does not automatically mean there is something unlawful, Lee said she could not answer this, as it would be BNM that ultimately decides if there is any illegal transaction.
“Because the word is ‘suspicious’, so we cannot say right or wrong,” she said, later adding: “The ultimate decision is Bank Negara.”
Agreeing that she had not been shown any report from BNM to suggest any of the RM19.3 million transactions to Bersatu’s accounts were illegal, Lee also agreed with Amer’s suggestion that it should not simply be concluded that all these transactions are unlawful.
“If based on this application, the nature of business is political party; the source of fund actually should be political party’s funds,” she said, adding that Bersatu’s account opening form did not declare the source of investment.
She had pointed out that a company which opens a bank account would typically state “business income” as its source of funds.
While Amer had suggested that the word “investor” could have been suggested by the CIMB bank officer who handled Bersatu’s account opening, Lee later said she disagreed as there is no proof that a bank officer had suggested this.
She told Mahadi that it is the bank customer who has to fill up the account opening form and the customer would have to declare the details in the form, adding that a CIMB officer could not make such suggestions as it is against the bank’s process and procedure.
Having confirmed that Muhyiddin was not the sole signatory of Bersatu’s CIMB bank account, Lee told Muhyiddin’s lawyer Chetan Jethwani that the Bersatu president is not the “sole controller” of this account in terms of moving money out.
But Lee later told Mahadi that there is no need for approval by Bersatu’s account’s signatories for the deposits of money into the account.
Muhyiddin’s trial before High Court judge Noor Ruwena Md Nurdi resumes tomorrow, with Lee expected to continue testifying.
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