KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 — A Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) analyst today told the High Court that he maintains his analysis that US$20 million flowed from government-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) to former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s private AmIslamic bank account in 2011, even though the bank statement of a purported Prince Faisal’s account at Riyad Bank, Saudi Arabia was not available for the money trail analysis.
BNM analyst Adam Ariff Mohd Roslan was testifying as the 47th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of 1MDB’s RM2.28 billion alleged to have entered the former finance minister’s personal bank accounts.
Adam Ariff insisted that his report on the money trail on 1MDB’s US$20 million (over RM60.6 million) into Najib’s account was still valid as it was based on other banking documents.
Najib’s defence lawyer Tania Scivetti this afternoon sought to challenge Adam Ariff’s money trail report on 1MDB, where the BNM analyst had concluded that RM60,629,839.43 banked into Najib’s AmIslamic bank account (which had the code name “AmPrivate Banking-MR”) between February 23, 2011 and June 14, 2011 can be traced back to a RM5 billion Islamic bond issued in May 2009 by 1MDB’s predecessor Terengganu Investment Authority Berhad (TIA) and a RM2.5 billion loan which 1MDB borrowed in 2010.
Scivetti suggested that Adam Ariff could not form the conclusion on the RM60.6 million sum in Najib’s account being traceable to the RM5 billion bond and RM2.5 billion loan “without analysing the statement of Riyad Bank account held in the name of His Royal Highness Prince Faisal bin Turki Al Saud and His Royal Highness Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud” for the February and June 2011 months.
But Adam Ariff replied: “I disagree, I stand by my report based on the facts available to me, it is traceable.”
Throughout the trial today, Scivetti and Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had sought to challenge Adam Ariff’s money trail on 1MDB’s US$20 million (or over RM60 million based on 2011 exchange rates) having reached Najib’s personal account “AmPrivate Banking-MR” under Phase One of the 1MDB scheme.
Najib’s lawyers’ challenge was based on Adam Ariff not having the purported Prince Faisal’s bank account statement when the analyst mapped out the money trail of the US$20 million in Najib’s account.
Adam Ariff had carried out the money trail analysis while he was seconded from BNM previously to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) 1MDB task force.
Under Phase One, 1MDB’s funds went through a complex web of transactions before reaching Malaysian fugitive Low Taek Jho’s Good Star Limited, which then passed money to the “Prince Faisal” bank account at Riyad Bank, which then further passed the US$20 million to Najib’s AmIslamic account, the money trail by Adam Ariff showed.
Earlier this morning, Shafee zeroed in on Adam Ariff’s money trail report, where the analyst had said it is reasonably believed that the Riyad Bank account under the name of “Prince Faisal” was used as a pass-through account to transfer money from Good Star to Najib’s account, based on the proximity of the dates and the amount of the transfers of funds between these accounts.
Adam Ariff confirmed that MACC did not provide him with any Riyad Bank documents, adding that he did request for them but was told by a MACC investigating officer that the documents were not available. He agreed with Shafee’s suggestion that these Riyad Bank documents were not available to MACC, and confirmed he did ask MACC to try to obtain these documents.
Without the Riyad Bank account’s bank documents, Adam Ariff confirmed he did not know how active the Riyad Bank account was and that he would also not know if there were other sources of money into the Riyad Bank account apart from Good Star.
While agreeing with Shafee that he would not be able to make a conclusion “in a scientific way” that the US$20 million in Najib’s account in 2011 did come from Good Star, Adam Ariff disagreed that his money trail report was just “intelligent guesswork”.
Shafee: So what you could have done, the next best thing you did was, you gave an opinion based on intelligent guesswork.
Adam Ariff: I disagree.
Adam Ariff explained that he still had evidence from both before and after the Riyad Bank account’s transfer of the US$20 million to Najib’s account and that he felt this was sufficient for his analysis even without the Riyad Bank account documents, saying that this evidence showed that Good Star’s transfers originated from 1MDB and the money was received by the Riyad Bank account.
Adam Ariff denied that he was making a “guess” that Good Star money had passed through the Riyad Bank account to Najib, but agreed it could be considered as an assumption.
He confirmed he would not know if there is any deal between Good Star and the Riyad Bank account’s holders and if any such deal may have nothing to do with the money passed to Najib.
Without the Riyad Bank account documents being made available to him, Adam Ariff later also agreed with Shafee that he would not be able to confirm whether it is possible that the US$20 million from the Riyad Bank account to Najib came from another source.
Adam Ariff however disagreed that his conclusion on the US$20 million from Good Star via the Riyad Bank account to Najib in 2011 was made to be “in line” with the MACC’s instructions to him, instead stressing that it was based on facts from all the banking documents provided to him and which he had reviewed.
“To be in line, no. It’s based on the fact that was given to me, based on the papers, the dates are close, the amounts are the same, therefore I believe it’s the same source,” he said, agreeing that this was his reasonable belief based on proximity of time of the transactions.
But when asked about the chart which he had prepared to show how US$20 million of 1MDB funds ended up in Najib’s account, Adam Ariff said he would need the bank statements of 1MDB and Good Star accounts, but said he does not need to have the Riyad Bank account’s bank statements to trace the movement of money.
“I can confirm there is transactions between the two parties, so I don’t need the Riyad Bank account to confirm there is movement of funds between the two parties,” he said.
Adam Ariff said Good Star’s bank account documents could confirm there was money paid out to Prince Faisal, and that Najib’s AmIslamic bank account documents also showed that money was paid out from Prince Faisal’s Riyad Bank account to Najib.
“Even without Riyad Bank, from AmPrivate Banking-MR account, I can confirm there is transaction from Riyad Bank account to AmPrivate Banking, because that is the documents and facts provided to me, that is what I have established in this particular movement of funds,” he told Shafee this morning, stressing that the movement of funds could still be established from the available bank documents.
In the afternoon, Scivetti challenged Adam Ariff’s conclusion, with the BNM analyst then saying he stood by his analysis of the money trail.
Najib was seen wearing a blue suit with a red tie, while his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor was seen sitting in the public gallery of the courtroom today.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes tomorrow, with the defence lawyers expected to further cross-examine Adam Ariff.
On the first day of trial, the prosecution had said it would show that 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, 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 British pound 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).
The conclusions in Adam Ariff’s 76-page money trail report on how RM2.28 billion reached Najib’s two AmIslamic bank accounts in four phases matches the four phases stated by the prosecution.
