KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak was the “ultimate” authority on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) affairs by virtue of being the prime minister and finance minister then, former chief executive Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi told the court today.
Shahrol Azral said this when denying that Najib’s alleged former adviser and now-fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho or Jho Low was a “shadow director” of 1MDB, insisting instead that his experience showed Low was relaying Najib’s instructions on how to conduct 1MDB matters.
Shahrol Azral was testifying as the ninth prosecution witness in Najib’s power abuse and money-laundering trial over more than RM2 billion of 1MDB funds.
Today, lead prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram asked Shahrol Azral to explain why he disagreed that Low was a “shadow director” of 1MDB acting through him in relation to 1MDB deals and transactions.
Sri Ram: From your experience as a CEO until you left the board, in 2016, who was the person giving directions through Jho Low?
Shahrol Azral: Ultimately the figure of authority for 1MDB throughout the time from 2009 to 2016 would have to be Datuk Seri Najib.
Sri Ram: Why do you say ‘would have to be Datuk Seri Najib’?
Shahrol Azral: Because he is the shareholder, the prime minister at that time as well as the chairman of the (1MDB) board of advisers and we had been receiving instructions from him via Jho from the very beginning.
.jpg)
Najib’s many hats
Among other things, Shahrol Azral maintained that he disagreed with the suggestion that Najib knew nothing of the role that Low had played in 1MDB affairs, telling Sri Ram that this was due to Najib’s actions that matched with the instructions relayed by Low in “talking points” and as he had observed through brief conversations with Najib that the latter had a “firm grasp” of 1MDB affairs.
Asked why he did not verify with Najib that the talking points from Low actually came from the then-prime minister, Shahrol Azral said Najib’s actions as 1MDB’s shareholder were in line with those talking points. 1MDB’s shareholder was the Finance Ministry-owned MOF Inc, and Najib as the finance minister had signed off on its behalf in 1MDB shareholder resolutions and shareholder minutes.
“From the very beginning of the establishment of 1MDB, all of the instructions and details contained within these talking points are either consistent with the actions or the subsequent actions of the shareholder, or in fact repeated by the shareholder on a number of occasions,” Shahrol Azral said, telling Sri Ram that the shareholder he was referring to is Najib.
When asked why 1MDB transactions were carried out without Najib’s written approval as prime minister as required under Article 117 of 1MDB’s company constitutions for major financial decisions, Shahrol Azral said he was advised that Najib’s approval in his other roles such as finance minister would be sufficient to authorise such actions.
“As I had stated during cross-examination, at that time upon advice given by legal counsel as well as the company secretary, the approval done by Datuk Seri Najib in his capacity as the sole shareholder, special shareholder as well as minister of finance, because it’s the same person, it’s sufficient that approval is deemed given under Article 117,” he said.
Why Shahrol believed Low’s instructions came from Najib
Earlier during cross-examination by Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Shahrol Azral confirmed that he never brought any of the 100-odd talking points he received from Low during 2009 to 2016 to Najib to confirm if those were Najib’s instructions. Shahrol Azral was 1MDB CEO from 2009 to 2013, and a member of 1MDB’s board of directors from 2013 to 2016.
But Shahrol Azral said he believed Low had the “mandate to convey instructions from PM at that time”, agreeing that this was due to his inference based on certain situations that led him to believe that Low was close to then prime minister Najib.
“It was a meeting chaired by Datuk Seri Najib with civil servants, it may have been the time when he chaired a meeting with the Ministry of Finance very early on. And before the meeting, Jho sent me talking points about the changing of name or federalisation of 1MDB, what impressed me at that time, what Datuk Seri Najib said at the meeting was almost word for word what I received earlier,” Shahrol Azral said, referring to how Terengganu Investment Authority was transformed from a state-linked entity to an entity under the federal government in 2009.
Confirming that the 1MDB board had always carried out instructions given in line with Low’s talking points without being told that these came from him and that the board did not know Shahrol Azral was acting on Low’s directions, Shahrol Azral told Shafee that Low had from 2009 said his involvement needed to be obscured due to Umno’s internal politics.
Shafee then said it was established that there was no evidence that Low’s instructions are actually from the prime minister, and that Low’s instructions had never been not followed by the 1MDB board.
Shafee then suggested that Low was 1MDB’s shadow director, but Shahrol Azral disagreed as he noted that Najib had signed documents — as required under 1MDB’s company constitution — that had matched Low’s instructions.
Shafee: So if I was to suggest to you, Jho Low in fact is a shadow director who has been supervising the whole board through you?
Shahrol Azral: I would disagree because in my mind at least, Jho was acting at the behest of the shareholder and he completes the loop. In my mind, the instructions came from the shareholder because subsequently it completes what I would say the loop — when we needed formal documents as required by the Articles to be signed with the details furnished by Jho in the talking points, they were invariably agreed to and signed.
On the first day of trial, the prosecution had said it would prove that Low was Najib’s alter ego and mirror image and that it would establish facts to show that the duo had acted as one.
Among other things, Shafee today suggested that Shahrol Azral had no evidence to back up his claims regarding the 100-odd written instructions or talking points he had purportedly received from Low from 2009 to 2016 as he had destroyed such documents on Low’s request, but Shahrol Azral disagreed.
Shahrol Azral pointed out that there were documents such as written board of advisers’ minutes that Najib had signed off on as previously testified, and pointed out that past events as a whole would be in line with his testimony regarding Najib.
“It’s not only the signed documents. It wouldn’t be logical to take it in just segments like that. If the question is that I took the veracity and truthfulness of the instructions relayed to me by Jho as being verified by not only the fact that the shareholder agreed to sign those documents but also by Datuk Seri Najib’s actions after that.
“And I think this is also worth it to point out to Yang Arif that after March 2013, throughout my tenure in Pemandu, I had far more numbers of meetings where Datuk Seri Najib chaired them than I did when I was in 1MDB and not a single issue of 1MDB was raised, ‘whatever went on with this or what went on with that’,” he said, explaining that Najib did not take him aside while chairing meetings under Pemandu committees to ask him on 1MDB issues.
Najib’s trial before High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah will resume next Monday.
