KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 16 — The owner of financial publication The Edge Tan Sri Tong Kooi Ong today said that then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had showed him the door at the latter’s house when he urged for now-fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho to be charged over the massive theft of government-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)’s funds.
Tong said this while testifying as the 43rd prosecution witness in the trial, where Najib is facing 25 charges over the misappropriation of RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds that were alleged to have entered his personal bank accounts.
The Edge had published many articles on 1MDB during Najib’s tenure as prime minister, which Tong said had made those in the Prime Minister’s Office upset.
Tong said he went in March 2015 to Najib’s private residence in Taman Duta, where he explained evidence which showed that 1MDB had entered into a joint venture with a company that was not actually owned by Saudi Arabia, and that the purported joint venture partner did not actually own the assets it was supposed to inject into the joint venture.
“I also basically explained to Datuk Seri Najib that the money of US$1 billion that 1MDB injected into PetroSaudi, US$700 million of which went to this company called Good Star, I basically explained to Datuk Seri Najib that Good Star actually belongs to Jho Low,” he told the High Court.
“I told him Jho Low was the actual person who decided on decisions made in 1MDB. I also told him Shahrol — who despite being the CEO of 1MDB — never made any decision, he was taking instructions from Jho Low, and in the context that Jho was the owner of Good Star,” he added.
Low is better known as Jho Low and is wanted in Malaysia over his role in the 1MDB scandal.
Asked by lead prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram if he had suggested what should be done with Low, Tong let out a long sigh before saying: “Yes, I did, I mean, Datuk Seri Najib was always a friend, I saw him as a friend. I told him that Jho has committed what is wrong and should be investigated and prosecuted.”
Asked what was the wrong that Low had allegedly committed, Tong said: “Well, he stole the US$700 million.”
Sri Ram: When you told Datuk Seri Najib that, what was Datuk Seri Najib’s reaction?
Tong: After I told Datuk Seri Najib that Jho should be held to account and be prosecuted, he stood up, he went to the door, he opened the door for me to leave.
Sri Ram: And did you leave?
Tong said, “Yes, of course”, while chuckling.
Asked if The Edge had continued publishing articles about 1MDB after that meeting with Najib, Tong said: “Yes, we did, and in fact we probably wrote even more.”
Explaining how his meeting with Najib at 10.45pm on March 6, 2015 came to be, Tong said that The Edge — including himself, the editor-in-chief Datuk Ho Kay Tat and others in the team who were doing investigative reporting and analysis — were concerned at that time over developments after obtaining evidence in the form of emails from PetroSaudi International director Xavier Justo then.
Tong said he had met with Datuk Abd Aziz Sheikh Fadzir, who was an MP and a member of parliamentary watchdog Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and that this man then introduced him to then MP Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim.
Tong said he had met Azeez at the Bangsar Shopping Centre where they spoke about “1MDB and the concerns”, and that Azeez had suggested he should meet with Najib to inform him. He said Azeez later informed him of the appointment at 10.45pm on March 6, 2015.
Asked why he had gone to meet Najib at that time, Tong said: “I think Azeez requested that I see Datuk Seri Najib to share with him what I had shared with Azeez. I’m not sure what his intentions are. My intent was obviously the hope that I would be able to share with Datuk Seri Najib and convince what I had learnt about 1MDB by then.”
Asked what had happened at Najib’s house, Tong recalled being led to the living room to wait and remarking to Najib that the latter “looked tired” after the latter came down from upstairs.
Tong recalled that there was a discussion lasting around 15 minutes while they were seated diagonally across each other in the living room, where Najib gave his views that articles which The Edge had been publishing since 2010 about 1MDB were “wrong”.
“He shared that the problem with 1MDB was the business model of 1MDB, by which he meant and he explained that it was because 1MDB was borrowing excessively and therefore had problems of debt repayment,” he said.
When Najib paused during that discussion, Tong said he then decided to sit next to the latter to share some notes and photocopies of some of the emails obtained from Justo.
“I basically explained what were already then in our possession — the emails of PetroSaudi that were contained in the disk that Mr Xavier Justo had passed to us in Singapore,” he said, noting that there was clear evidence extracted from the thousands of emails on various matters including the fact that 1MDB’s purported joint venture partner PetroSaudi was actually a privately-owned company that was not a company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
It was after the explanations and after he urged for Low to be charged over 1MDB that Tong was shown out of the house by Najib.
On September 30, 2009, 1MDB had pumped in US$1 billion — which it had borrowed — for the joint venture after signing the partnership deal just two days prior with PetroSaudi Holdings (Cayman) Ltd. This Cayman Islands-based firm is now known to be a sham company with a similar name as the real Saudi Arabia-based firm PetroSaudi International Ltd.
Out of the US$1 billion which 1MDB sent out for the purported investment, US$700 million was diverted to Good Star Limited, while US$300 million was sent to the purported joint venture company’s account. Former 1MDB CEO Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi had however previously told this trial that 1MDB received no returns from the US$1 billion investment at all.
Today, Tong said Paul Stadlen had introduced himself at an event by The Edge where then prime minister Najib was a guest of honour, noting that Stadlen had handed over a name card that stated his role as being a communications adviser of the Prime Minister’s Office.
“I think in the initial period when I first knew Paul, he was trying to be friendly, he had coffee with me a couple of times. I think eventually he started to convince me that The Edge shouldn’t be writing all these articles we were writing, because he said it was making many people upset at the Prime Minister’s Office,” he said.
While saying he generally does not intervene in the editorial side of The Edge as he handles more of the publication’s business side, Tong said he did look into many of the documents and tried to analyse the 1MDB issue as he was both an analyst and economist and would understand such matters better than most people at the financial publication. Tong has a Bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting, and a Master’s degree in economics.
Asked if he himself and The Edge faced any consequences as a result of the publications on 1MDB, Tong pointed to an incident which happened after The Edge continued printing such articles, where Ho, The Malaysian Insider’s (TMI) chief executive Jahabar Sadiq, and three other staff were investigated by the police and detained overnight before being released.
Tong was referring to the police’s arrest of three editors at news portal The Malaysian Insider (TMI) on March 30, 2015 and their release the next day after being detained for a night over a sedition probe, as well as the police’s arrest on March 31, 2015 of TMI’s Jahabar and Ho who was CEO of The Edge Media Group which owned TMI at that time when they went to the police station for investigations and the subsequent release of the duo after detaining them overnight.
“I was banned from leaving the country, I was also investigated by the income tax department for money laundering and tax evasion and of course The Edge was suspended for three months, although we got it lifted by going to the courts,” he said.
The Home Ministry on July 27, 2015 suspended the publishing permits of The Edge Media Group’s two publications The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily for three months, but the High Court on September 21, 2015 quashed the Home Ministry’s decision. The High Court on December 17, 2018 ordered the home minister and the Home Ministry’s secretary-general to pay over RM11.2 million in compensation, and on August 14, 2019 ordered for a further RM500,000 in exemplary damages to be paid to The Edge.
When asked who did he consider responsible for the events which happened to The Edge as well as its employees, Tong said: “I think, logically, it probably has something to do with the coverage of The Edge, The Edge’s coverage of 1MDB because that was what Paul Stadlen warned me about.”
Asked by Sri Ram what was the “warning”, Tong said: “That the Prime Minister’s Office is all powerful and that we should be careful.”
Asked if he has any personal grudge against Najib in testifying in court today, Tong said: “Not then, not now, no, I don’t. I’ve never had a grudge.”
Earlier, Tong said he had known Najib since the early 1990s.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah is set to come up in court tomorrow.
