KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 4 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal AmIslamic bank account which he opened in 2011 with the expectation of receiving a purported US$100 million donation from Saudi Arabia was a "sensitive” bank account which had to be given a special code name, the High Court heard today.

AmBank’s former managing director Cheah Tek Kuang, 75, said this while testifying in court as the 39th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of RM2.28 billion of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds.

After Najib opened his personal bank account with the account number 211-202-200969-4 or ending 9694, Cheah said AmBank’s operations team headed by Ross Foden had proposed for a code name to be given to the account, as the account was "sensitive and to avoid an information leak like Public Bank for the NFC case”.

"I agreed with the code name which was ‘AmPrivate Banking-MR’ for Datuk Seri Najib’s account to avoid personal information from being misused,” Cheah told the High Court.

Cheah said he did not know if Najib had been informed of this code name, but said it falls under AmBank’s operations team to choose the code name as it involves internal matters and bank operations.

Why a bank’s MD met with Najib to open the VVIP account

Cheah said he was informed in January 2011 by Joanna Yu who was then AmBank relationship manager in charge of handling 1MDB’s account that the then prime minister Najib wished to open a current account with the bank.

Regarding the opening of this "VVIP” account, Cheah said Yu did not state who had given the order to open the account for Najib, but suggested that Yu may have received the request to open the account as she was handling 1MDB’s accounts. Cheah explained that those who handle accounts belonging to the "Big Corporate” category would also usually handle the banking affairs for those companies’ owners or directors, and highlighted that Najib was chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board.

Cheah said Yu felt she was not of suitable rank to meet directly with Najib and sought for his help to obtain Najib’s signature for the opening of the account and application for credit card and to hand over the cheque book.

Cheah said he was willing to help but also felt he was unsuited in rank to meet Najib directly as he had a superior namely AmBank chairman Tan Sri Azman Hashim.

After having met with Azman privately at the latter’s office at Menara AmBank, Cheah said he was instructed to meet Najib: "Tan Sri Azman rejected to meet with Datuk Seri Najib and ordered me to meet with Datuk Seri Najib. I have no choice, and this is an instruction, therefore I agreed to meet with the prime minister.”

After having made arrangements with Najib’s then principal private secretary Datuk Azlin Alias to meet with Najib for the bank account opening, Cheah said he was picked up from his house by a driver sent by Azlin and was brought to Najib’s house in Taman Duta.

The US$100m expected ‘donation’

After introducing himself to Najib and meeting him in the living room, the two of them were alone when the banking documents were provided to Najib for him to sign in order to open the bank account with the account number 211-202-200969-4.

"Next, he told me that there will be money coming in from Saudi Arabia. A big sum of money in USD totalling US$100,000,000. I did not ask the purpose of the money to be received by him, but he himself said that money is a donation from the Saudi Arabia government for ‘Islamic activity’ for him himself,” Cheah said, adding that he had left about five minutes later as Najib was very busy, and they did not discuss anything else except the account and expected transaction.

At this meeting, Cheah had handed over the cheque book for the new AmIslamic account ending 9694, the acknowledgment slip, the savings book, as well as the credit card application form which Cheah said was also the form to open the account.

Cheah said he had ordered all the documents to be prepared in one shot for him to hand over to Najib, explaining that he felt it was not suitable for him to meet two or three times wiht Najib just to hand over the banking documents and to get his signature.

"For this account, maybe due to his status, therefore the procedure to open this account was quite special where the cheque, card and opening form was prepared in one shot since it is difficult to arrange to meet with the prime minister,” he explained.

About a week after he met with Najib for the opening of the bank account, Cheah said Yu had given him a letter dated February 1, 2011, adding that this letter had said Saudi Arabia would deposit US$100 million into Najib’s account and that Yu had confirmed the funds would be entered into Najib’s new 9694 account.

"I also confirm that in the earlier meeting with Datuk Seri Najib, he did state that there would be donation money coming in from Saudi Arabia totalling US$100 million into this account of his,” he said, adding that he did not know where Yu obtained the letter and that he did not ask further regarding the letter.

This letter is one of the four strikingly similar letters which Najib’s lawyers had been presenting to the court in recent days, where a purported Saudi prince by the name of Saud Abdulaziz Al-Saud had promised gifts to Najib in the form of money worth US$100 million, US$375 million, US$800 million and £50 million.

Informing BNM about Najib and the US$100m

After his meeting with Najib, Cheah said he had then personally met with Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz in order to notify regarding Najib’s opening of the account and the latter’s expectation to receive US$100 million from Saudi Arabia.

"In this meeting, only the two of us were in the discussion, as this is ‘rahsia’ (confidential) and involves the interests of the prime minister,” he said, adding that it was important for him to inform Zeti as it involved a "politically exposed person” and national interests.

"Tan Sri Zeti had taken note of the matter and asked that it is required to be carried out following existing bank and BNM rules,” he said, adding that he had then handed over all operational matters to Yu and Foden’s team which then decided on the code name for the account.

After having met with Zeti, Cheah said he had signed off a letter on February 9, 2011 to Zeti, where he informed Zeti that Najib’s account would be known as "AmPrivate Banking - MR” for the Ringgit Operations Monitoring System (ROMS) reporting to BNM.

Cheah said this was to make it easier for BNM to monitor and supervise through its ROMS. According to BNM’s website, ROMS was introduced in 2001 as a system for authorised dealers to report foreign exchange transactions to BNM.

"With this, I confirm that I as managing director at that time had taken the correct steps in notifying Bank Negara Malaysia and deny that AmBank had intention to hide any information from Bank Negara,” he said.

Najib’s lawyer Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed told the High Court that lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah — who was not present today as he was unwell — would be cross-examining Cheah tomorrow.

On the first day of trial, the prosecution said it would prove that RM2,282,937,678.41 or over RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds had entered Najib’s personal bank accounts from all four phases of the 1MDB scheme, including via companies allegedly linked to fugitive Low Taek Jho and his associate Eric Tan.

But Najib’s lawyers have been seeking to push forward the defence that the funds which entered his personal accounts were allegedly donations from Saudi’s royal family.

Najib’s 1MDB trial before High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah is expected to resume tomorrow morning.