KUALA LUMPUR, April 6 — Former 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) director Tan Sri Ismee Ismail said he had the impression that then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak wanted the company to carry out a new joint venture deal that would later involve 1MDB pumping in US$1 billion (RM4.21 billion), based on a phone call that was made while the 1MDB directors were still studying the deal’s proposal and were waiting for information from due diligence by the 1MDB management.
Ismee said this while testifying as the 13th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of more than RM2 billion of 1MDB funds.
Today, Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah examined the events that took place on September 26, 2009, where a 1MDB board meeting was held to discuss the proposed joint venture deal.
Just before the 1MDB board meeting could start on that day, Low Taek Jho — viewed by 1MDB management and directors to be Najib’s adviser for 1MDB affairs but who is now a fugitive — was said to have passed his handphone to then 1MDB chairman Tan Sri Mohd Bakke Salleh.
Ismee had previously testified that Bakke had told all the other 1MDB directors “PM call” before leaving to take the call, and that Bakke had later returned to his seat after the call to tell the directors that Najib wanted the 1MDB board to expedite and “firm up” its decision to approve the proposal for 1MDB to enter into a joint venture with purported partner PetroSaudi International Limited.
Ismee confirmed today that the minutes of the 1MDB board meeting on that day had not stated what instructions the prime minister had given on the joint venture proposal.
In response to Shafee suggesting that Bakke must have taken some time to inform the 1MDB board members of the conversation with then prime minister Najib, Ismee said: “What I can recall, basically he took the chair and said ‘PM wants us to do this’.”
Shafee then read out Bakke’s court testimony regarding what Najib had said in the phone conversation, suggesting that Najib did not ask the 1MDB board to get the joint venture deal done.
Shafee: Very important is this, from what I just read, Tan Sri Bakke never said PM direct the board to do the deal. This is his own words, he said ‘PM said I would like the board to quickly consider the proposal and firm up the decision’. He didn’t even direct what kind of decision to be made. He said this has been going so long, firm up lah the decision, wasn’t that the kind of message conveyed by Tan Sri Bakke to the board?
Ismee: The impression I got is PM wants it done.
Shafee sought to suggest that what Bakke told the 1MDB directors about Najib’s remarks was not the same as the phone conversation contents that Bakke had told the court, but Ismee said: “Only Tan Sri Bakke would be able to answer that.”
Recently, Bakke had testified in a separate trial against Najib about the phone conversation on September 26, 2009, stating Najib as having said: “I want you guys to focus on the proposal of PetroSaudi joint venture because this thing has been discussed for quite some time. We need to firm up a decision as soon as possible because I would like to witness this together with Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia, and we are planning to sign this at the end of the month.”
In Ismee’s witness statement, he had described what Najib had told Bakke about the joint venture deal as “arahan” or orders from Najib, adding that the 1MDB board had then tried to find the best way to carry out instruction including by imposing conditions on the joint venture company.
Ismee had previously also testified that the 1MDB board of directors were aware that the “final decision lies with the prime minister who is the chairman of board of advisers of 1MDB” and that the board had sought to carry out the “arahan” of the prime minister by carrying out a comprehensive study and seeing how it could protect 1MDB’s interests.
Shafee today challenged this part of Ismee’s testimony, by arguing that the chairman of 1MDB’s board of advisers has no independent executive function and does not have executive powers unless done in a meeting by the board of advisers.
But Ismee pointed out that Najib was the same person that held all three positions of being the prime minister, finance minister and 1MDB’s board of advisers.
Shafee: I’m putting it to you that when you made the statement, you actually did not realise there is no separate power of the chairman of board of advisers and the chairman himself doesn’t have executive powers unless it goes through the board of advisers.
Ismee: In form I may agree with you, but in substance it is one and the same person, the chairman of board of advisers is the prime minister, the prime minister is the finance minister.
On the first day of this trial, the prosecution had said it would show that US$20 million (equivalent to RM60,629,839.43 or over RM60 million) of funds originating from the US$1 billion funds pumped in by 1MDB for the purported joint venture had been transferred to Najib’s personal bank account in 2011.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes this afternoon.
