.JPG "Datuk Seri Najib Razak arrives at the Kuala Lumpur High Court January 5, 2022. u00e2u20acu201d Picture by Miera Zulyana")
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 5 — Mentioning then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s name as a shield from being questioned by 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) board would not have worked, the company’s former chief financial officer Azmi Tahir told the court today when rejecting that he had done such name-dropping.
Azmi said this while testifying as the 12th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of more than RM2 billion of 1MDB’s funds.
Today, Najib’s lawyer Datuk Hariharan Tara Singh suggested that Azmi was told by now-fugitive Low Taek Jho or Jho Low and former 1MDB CEO Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi to “just use Datuk Seri Najib’s name whenever anyone questioned you be it board or member of senior management” in order to execute Low’s “pre-arranged plan” to siphon money from 1MDB.
Azmi however disagreed that he had done such name-dropping.
Hariharan claimed that Azmi was told to name-drop Najib, saying: “You were told in that fashion, because no one would challenge if you said this instruction came from Datuk Seri Najib and therefore it will be a shield for you.”
Azmi replied: “Why would they accept that from me? Why would they accept me dropping names?”
While Hariharan noted that Azmi had repeatedly mentioned Najib’s name in his witness statement, Azmi suggested that the senior corporate figures in 1MDB board would not have believed him if he were to have cited Najib’s name.
“These are my statements, how I felt, how I acted, but you said I used that name-dropping to the board so they would believe me. Why would they believe me? As you can see, before 1MDB, I was nobody, we have Tan Sri on the board, very senior, corporate, I disagree,” Azmi said.
Earlier, Hariharan had suggested that Azmi had followed all the instructions allegedly given by Low or Shahrol as that was the “pre-arranged plan” to “handpick” Azmi to be 1MDB’s CFO to misappropriate money from 1MDB and that he is part of Low’s “criminal team”, but Azmi disagreed with such a suggestion.
Hariharan also suggested Azmi was handpicked directly to be 1MDB’s CFO and given that pivotal role to enable him to mislead the 1MDB board about the finances of 1MDB and its subsidiaries “by merely saying all these are instructions from Datuk Seri Najib”, but Azmi disagreed to this.
About Najib and whether he gave instructions on 1MDB
While confirming that he had never obtained any single instruction from Najib, Azmi disagreed with Hariharan’s claim that he knew the instructions from Low and Shahrol did not come from Najib.
Agreeing it could be possible that Low made everyone believe that his instructions came from Najib due to the working-in-silo system in 1MDB, Azmi insisted that Najib’s aide Datuk Azlin Alias had told him that “everything that came from Jho Low is considered to be from Najib”.
Azmi had previously testified that he viewed Low to be an adviser to then-prime minister Najib, and to be Najib’s right-hand man and trusted person in relation to 1MDB matters.
Azmi denied that he had only received instructions from Low and Shahrol regarding 1MDB, insisting that he had also received instructions from Azlin.
Azmi confirmed that he believed Azlin’s instructions were to be taken as Najib’s instructions.
Hariharan then suggested “You are saying that Datuk Azlin’s instructions is Datuk Seri Najib’s instructions, simply because you know for a fact that Datuk Azlin has passed away and can never rebut that,” but Azmi disagreed.
Hariharan suggested that Najib never gave any instructions to Azlin, but Azmi replied: “I wouldn’t know”.
Azmi also said he had trusted what Azlin said as he knew the latter for a long time and was quite close to him.
When asked by Hariharan if he had ever clarified with Najib on instructions that came from Low or Azlin, Azmi said it was “not my place” to do so and confirmed he had not verified with Najib, further disagreeing that this was because he was in alleged “cahoots” with Low and Shahrol.
Confirming that he had viewed confidential actions over 1MDB to have been arranged and planned by Low with Najib’s blessings, Azmi disagreed that this view was a mere “assumption” and instead said: “That was our belief back then.”
Hariharan had suggested the view regarding Najib’s “blessings” was an assumption as Azmi had never verified with Najib directly, but Azmi later said: “No, there’s a difference between assumption and belief. We sincerely thought that was the case.”
Among other things, Azmi disagreed with the suggestion that he had worked together with Low and other 1MDB officials to misappropriate money from 1MDB and its subsidiaries.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes tomorrow morning, with Azmi expected to continue testifying.
