KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 — Former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz has denied knowledge of RM2.6 billion being deposited into the personal bank account of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Zeti, a member of the Council of Eminent Persons, said the claims brought against her by the former prime minister were false, revealing she was instead forced to pen a letter to vindicate him.

“On July 3rd 2015, I was called to the Prime Minister’s office. He made a request for me to issue a statement that he had done nothing wrong in his account.

“I informed him that I cannot issue such a statement because I did not have knowledge of transactions that had occurred in his account,” she said in a statement.

She said another cabinet minister had approached her with the same request.

“I gave him the same answer that I cannot issue any such statement because I did not have knowledge of what had transpired in his account.”

Najib, in an interview with Malaysiakini recently, claimed Zeti had knowledge of the money being remitted into his account before the 13th general election but did nothing about it when she was BNM governor.

Najib had said if BNM knew about the money and had concerns over it, he would have expected them to alert him.

Zeti today also elaborated on transactions by account holders in the banking system, explaining that BNM relied on information provided by the reporting of financial institutions.

“The banking community is fully aware of the regulations and guidelines governing the reporting of any suspicious transactions and for the necessary due diligence on the operations of any such accounts.

“Unless the relevant banking institution reports to BNM of irregularities in an account or if BNM received a tip off that gives a reason to believe that an offence has occurred, the central bank is not able to initiate investigation into the account,” she said.

Zeti was BNM’s governor for 16 years until she retired in 2016.

Najib maintained in the Malaysiakini interview that the money was a donation from a member of the Saudi royal family, insisting yet again that he returned US$620 million (RM2.5 billion) to the donor after the said polls.

The US Department of Justice in its kleptocracy investigation has claimed that the money was connected to the 1Malaysia Development Board scandal.