KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak reiterated that former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Tan Sri Zeti Akthar Aziz was aware of the controversial RM2.6 billion transferred into his own personal account.
“I respect Zeti for her sterling work as the Bank Negara governor when I was prime minister,” the beleaguered former prime minister told Malaysiakini.
“However, I maintain she was informed of the incoming foreign donation deposits into my accounts and that she was aware of the deposits at that time.
“It is up to her if she wants to say that as Bank Negara governor at that time, she was not aware of the deposit from overseas that went into my bank account in the year 2013, which I later returned most of it to the same source a few months later,” he added.
On Tuesday, Zeti 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.
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 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.
