KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had spent RM80,000 in his personal AmIslamic bank account codenamed “AmPrivate Banking-MR” to pay a company in 2013 for cancer prevention and supplements, the High Court heard today during his 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) trial.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Foo Wei Min, who was testifying as the 48th prosecution witness in Najib’s 1MDB trial, said the company Vital Spire Sdn Bhd had confirmed the purpose for the RM80,000 cheque issued by Najib in 2013.
Foo had in late August 2018 interviewed and recorded statements from Najib during money laundering investigations on the latter's bank accounts in the 1MDB case, and had asked Najib to explain the cheques that were paid out from his account.
Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah read out excerpts from Najib’s 2018 statement to Foo, which included Najib claiming that his RM80,000 cheque to Vital Spire was “payment for my cancer medicine” as his late father and former prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein died of leukaemia and had advised him to take medicines to prevent it.
Shafee said this RM80,000 cheque was the first of a few payments for the same purpose, and claimed that Najib had also said he had “this fear as a prime minister if he has a similar situation like Tun Razak, he wouldn’t be able to carry on with the administration of the country, so he wanted to prevent this”.
“He also told you the total cost for that medicine over a period was about RM1 million or less, remember? And remember what he said? ‘I don’t have the heart to charge the government, so I use this money and lessen the burden of the government’. Remember he said that? Because he is entitled to get it from the government,” Shafee said.
Foo then responded by saying that he had taken a statement from Vital Spire, adding: “From the statement taken from Vital Spire Sdn Bhd, I confirmed that these are the usage by the account for supplementary of vitamins, for prevention of cancer and also supplements for his health. So the usage, the amount is more than RM80,000, these are only the first payment and then there are more payments, and that’s all I know.”
Shafee then urged Foo to try to remember Najib’s statement that he had said he could always get these items from the government as a minister or prime minister if he has a genuine fear and the doctor has advised, but that he had said he does not want to burden the government and that he made the payment “from the money that I thought was a donation”.
Foo said he “thinks” Najib mentioned this but could not remember it, but agreed when Shafee asked if Najib had mentioned that he used the money from his own account to not burden the government.
Foo confirmed that all other payments made to Vital Spire were for the same purpose.
Earlier, Foo said he had investigated every single payment out of Najib’s “AmPrivate Banking-MR” account as part of his probe on money laundering in the 1MDB case, as it was important to confirm what the illegal funds in his account was used for and to confirm with the recipients on the purpose of funds given to them.
Foo explained that the police received cheques issued by Najib in batches from the bank, and that he would ask both Najib and those who had received the cheques on the purpose of the transactions.
Shafee today asked Foo about a series of cheques which were part of the investigations against Najib, but these cheques including the payment to Vital Spire are not part of the money laundering charges that Najib is facing in the 1MDB trial.
As for Najib’s five cheques totalling RM22.649 million that are alleged to have involved illegal money originating from a 1MDB subsidiary and are related to Najib’s money laundering charges in the 1MDB trial, Shafee is expected to ask Foo about his investigation findings on these cheques next week.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before Judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah will resume next Tuesday.
