KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 27 — A former AmBank manager Joanna Yu admitted in court today to her past failure in contacting Low Taek Jho about funds for Datuk Seri Najib Razak's AmIslamic bank accounts.
Yu, who is the 41st prosecution witness in Najib's trial over the misappropriation of RM2.28 billion of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds, confirmed that the former prime minister had not given any written authority for Low to handle his private bank accounts.
She also told the High Court that Low was the one who had told her that Najib wanted to open accounts with AmBank.
The 1MDB funds were said to have been funnelled through Najib's personal AmIslamic bank accounts.
The Penang-born Low better known as Jho Low has been on the run since 2015.
Yu was the former AmBank relationship manager who was in charge of liaising between the client and the bank on Najib's AmIslamic bank accounts.
She told the court that she either contacted Najib's account mandate holder Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil or Low – if she could not reach Nik Faisal – about incoming funds for Najib's accounts.
Najib had signed off on letters to AmBank previously to inform the bank that Nik Faisal would be his mandate holder or authorised personnel with powers to deal with his accounts.
Today, Yu confirmed that there were no similar documents that authorised Low to handle transactions in Najib's accounts.
Under cross-examination from lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Yu confirmed she had been in contact with Low regarding Najib's accounts and that there was no authority given to AmBank for it to contact Low over these matters.
Shafee: So on what authority did you act when you contacted Jho Low about Datuk Seri Najib's account?
Yu: I contacted Jho Low because he is the one who initiated the opening of accounts, he was the one who informed me.
Shafee: The question is on what authority. You need authority, documented authority for purposes of operations of account, you can consult Jho Low, just like the mandate letter given to you. Is there a letter in writing for Datuk Seri Najib's account for you to deal with Jho Low?
Yu: No, there is nothing in writing.
Shafee: Isn't that a failure on your part as a banker, you know bankers are very strict on these kinds of things, how come you took such an easy way out?
Yu: Yes, it is my failure.
Earlier, Shafee noted Yu had consistently said she would contact Nik Faisal first and would contact Low if Nik Faisal was not contactable regarding Najib's accounts.
The defence lawyer suggested that this was a "lie" that Yu had concocted to "hide the fact that your dominant, primary source of contact was Jho Low".
Yu disagreed, asserting that she had contacted both individuals.
Among other things, Yu confirmed she had not contacted Najib directly to ask if he agreed to the exchange rates for the conversion of almost US$620 million into Ringgit Malaysia, before the funds entered Najib's AmBank account in nine batches over a period from March 22 to April 10, 2013.
Yu agreed that she had not obtained direct confirmation from Najib and she could have done so as his home address at Jalan Langgak Duta was available to the bank.
She clarified she had spoken once to the mandate holder Nik Faisal who agreed for the incoming nearly US$620 million to be converted in batches into ringgit to be deposited into Najib's AmIslamic account (211-202-200969-4 with the code name of "AmPrivate Banking-MR").
"For the US$620 million, I believe I only had one confirmation with Nik and he said go ahead, convert, because I told him, Markets says if you convert whole lump sum, it would affect market, it would have to be in tranches, the rates would be best rate on the day they do the transaction," she said.
Shafee today referred to a March 1, 2013 letter from an alleged Saudi prince promising to give US$800 million as a gift to Najib.
This was one of the four purported Saudi donation letters which Najib's lawyers had previously shown in court to argue that the former prime minister had genuinely believed the billions of ringgit which went into his accounts were from donations and not 1MDB funds.
Yu confirmed she did not have any suspicions about the letter when this March 2013 letter was given to AmBank to justify the huge sums of money coming into Najib's account, also noting that the bank had been informed that money would be coming in and it had went through the proper channels.
Yu confirmed she and AmBank had at that time accepted that the millions of US dollars coming into Najib's accounts were Saudi donations based on those letters and did not have suspicions then, confirming that she had not alerted Najib that there was anything wrong with those transactions and that no one had alerted Najib that those funds were not donation monies.
Yu said former AmBank group managing director Ashok Ramamurthy had verbally told her he was not "comfortable" with Najib's account and said the account should be closed. Yu said she had asked Low to get Najib to close the account.
On the first day of trial, the prosecution had said it would show that RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds had been transferred in multiple transactions to Najib’s accounts, namely US$20 million equivalent to RM60,629,839.43 or over RM60 million from the first phase of the 1MDB scheme, US$30 million equivalent to RM90,899,927.28 or over RM90 million (second phase), US$681 million equivalent to RM2,081,476,926 or over RM2 billion (third phase), and transactions in pounds sterling that were equivalent to RM4,093,500 and RM45,837,485.70 or a combined total of RM49,930,985.70 million or over RM49 million (fourth phase).
Yu, who worked with AmBank from 1995 to 2015, also confirmed today she had only received a termination letter from the bank and not a show cause letter as well.
Shafee requested her to bring the termination letter next Monday as it would be directly relevant to her conduct in relation to Najib's accounts.
Najib's 1MDB before judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah will resume next Monday.
