KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had used at least RM1 billion of the RM3.2 billion in his personal bank account that included funds from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the High Court heard today.
Former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz said this while testifying as the 46th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial, where RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds were alleged to have entered the latter’s private bank accounts.
Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah tried to suggest that his client was charged in court when the blame for the billions of money flowing out of 1MDB should purportedly be with 1MDB’s board and management, BNM, and AmBank.
Shafee: I put it to you, you notice the fault is 1MDB board, management, Bank Negara, and AmBank. And who is in the accused dock is the former prime minister who did nothing in these transactions. I’m putting it to you, is there anything that can show that the prime minister and finance minister was involved in this hoodwinking?
Zeti: Well, RM3.2 billion went into his account and he expended at least RM1 billion, and this was partly 1MDB’s monies.
Shafee then tried to suggest that there was a double standard when Najib claimed to not know about the money in his accounts previously.
Shafee: You too said at that time I didn’t know, now I know. But when the prime minister said at that time, I didn’t know, now I know, you say it’s wrong. Why is there double standard, why? You tell me. I think Yang Arif, we stop there.
Zeti: I disagree it’s a double standard.
The High Court proceedings this afternoon then ended, as Shafee said he will continue cross-examining Zeti tomorrow.
Earlier today, Zeti told the High Court that both she and BNM did not know about a sum of RM2.6 billion in Najib’s AmBank account before the 13th general election (GE13) in 2013, and that BNM only discovered after a raid on AmBank in 2015 that the actual sum of money that went into Najib’s account was RM3.2 billion.
In a July 2, 2018, news report by Malaysiakini, Najib was reported alleging in an interview with the news portal that Zeti was aware of the RM2.6 billion in his account before GE13, and said he "expected" BNM to tell him if the central bank knew there were some doubts about the source of the funds in his accounts and that he "assumed all along that it was fine" since BNM did not notify him.
Zeti today however replied that BNM did not know then as AmBank did not lodge any suspicious transaction reports and that BNM would have been disallowed by the law from telling bank account holders — including Najib — about suspicious transactions in their accounts.
“At that material time, we had no knowledge. But if suspicions had been raised, the law requires that Bank Negara have to immediately report it to the law enforcement agencies, in this particular case it would be the MACC and police, and the law also prohibits Bank Negara from informing anyone else, which includes of course the account holder,” she had said.
Zeti also confirmed that during the time when BNM was carrying out investigations in the past, Najib did not ask about the source of the funds in his four AmBank accounts.
Throughout the trial, Najib's lawyers have sought to argue that the source of the billions of ringgit which entered Najib's bank accounts were donations or gifts from Saudi Arabia's royalty.
The trial is being heard before Judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
