KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 21 — Financial publication The Edge’s owner Tan Sri Tong Kooi Ong agreed that Datuk Seri Najib Razak is a polite person, but disagreed that the then prime minister politely walked him out of the door during their meeting in 2015 on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Tong was testifying as the 43rd prosecution witness in Najib’s 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.
Tong previously testified that Najib showed him the door at the latter’s private residence at Jalan Langgak Duta during the March 6, 2015 meeting, after he had alerted the then prime minister that something was wrong with 1MDB and that Low Taek Jho should be charged.
Tong described Najib as silently standing up and opening the house’s door near the living room where they were seated, confirming that the latter did not verbally ask him to leave.
But he disagreed that Najib was doing it as a polite gesture.
Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah suggested that his client is “probably the most polite person you met”, which Tong agreed to. Tong confirmed Najib had “never” been rude to him.
Shafee then tried to suggest that Najib was politely accompanying Tong to the door, saying: “Can I suggest to you, you may have misinterpreted, because you were seated at the reception area, nearest to the main door, he actually walked you to the door and said ‘thank you’, he terminated the conversation? You understand?”
But Tong disagreed by saying : “I wish he did that.”
Shafee: But he didn’t tell you, ‘Tong, get out’.
Tong: No, he didn’t ask me to leave.
Tong then explained what had happened at the same March 2015 meeting, where he was showing explanations and evidence about how US$700 million of 1MDB funds had gone to Low’s company Good Star Ltd and which then led to Najib opening the door to have him leave.
Shafee: So what happened? What made you leave, did he walk you to the door?
Tong: After I explained to him the handwritten notes and what was happening at 1MDB and the problems arising thereof, he told me that he would close 1MDB.
Shafee: He would shut it down?
Tong: He would shut it down. I then proceeded to say, but somebody must be held to account and that person is Jho Low. In the documents, in the briefing note, I clearly showed the money was diverted to Good Star, and I clearly stated to him that it was Jho Low who owned Good Star — not PetroSaudi — so I basically then said that Jho Low should be held accountable and be prosecuted. From then on, he never said a word, he stood up and walked to the door. He opened the door, I stood up and then I left.
Asked by Shafee if Najib would walk him to the door every time he visited the latter’s house, Tong did not recall any other occasion when it was just him and Najib alone, and that there were many others present.
Earlier, Tong had said he and Najib had got to know each other sometime in the mid 1990s and agreed that their relationship could be described as “comfortable”, having explained: “To me, he is a friend, I had been to his house many times, besides Raya and so on, I’ve attended parties or birthday parties at his house and he has visited me once on Chinese New Year, if I remember correctly.”
Shafee suggested that Tong could have been “sensitive” to the fact that his briefing on 1MDB did not receive the response expected and that he could have “misinterpreted” Najib’s actions by thinking the latter was showing him the door, but Tong disagreed by saying, “In my mind, the gesture was not what you would have described.”
Asked how Najib had gestured him to get out of the house, Tong explained that it was Najib’s action of standing up without saying a word and walking to and opening the door, saying that it had “surprised” him.
While Shafee suggested that it was possible that Najib had been sceptical about the briefing on 1MDB, Tong said Najib did not say he was sceptical.
On his meeting alone with Najib at the latter’s house on March 6, 2015, Tong explained that it was not him who had requested to see Najib, and that it was instead at the request of and organised by then MP Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim.
Tong said he told Azeez that something was wrong with 1MDB, and Azeez had suggested he share the information with Najib and had then organised the meeting as he thought both Tong and Najib should talk about 1MDB face-to-face.
Tong said he had went for the meeting as Azeez advised him to brief Najib on 1MDB, and said: “I thought I had certain information I should share with him, more because I treated him as a friend.”
For the briefing on 1MDB and how its US$700 million had been diverted to Low’s company Good Star, Tong said he had shown Najib his own handwritten notes and a copy of an email extracted from emails received from former PetroSaudi International director Xavier Justo.
Shafee suggested that Justo was an employee of PetroSaudi and that Najib, and that Najib was aware some of the documents shown to him by Tong were from Justo.
But Tong said Justo had himself said he was a director of PetroSaudi when they met in February 2015, saying he was used to people spinning narratives and he did not really bother with suggestions that Justo is an employee.
Tong said he was not sure whether Najib was aware the email was from Justo, also saying “I can’t read his mind” when Shafee suggested that Najib was concerned that some of the documents shown were from Justo and noted that Najib did not say so.
When Shafee suggested that Najib was uncomfortable throughout the meeting and had felt discomfort about reading documents that may have been illegally taken from PetroSaudi, but Tong said he did not know.
Tong later stressed that he had never paid money to Justo for the information that was given to him, noting that Justo had said he was a director of PetroSaudi and he owned the data and that was the basis on which those data was given.
Responding to hints and suggestions by Shafee that the emails provided by Justo were stolen from PetroSaudi, Tong rejected such claims as he pointed out that his lawyers had repeatedly written to PetroSaudi but noted that the company had never responded and has never claimed to have lost any data.
“I don’t understand how something can be stolen if the person who lost the items did not report it as stolen. PetroSaudi has never reported their things were stolen,” Tong said.
Tong explained that he generally does not get involved in The Edge’s editorial, and said he had gotten involved with 1MDB due to the difficulty of the case.
Commenting about a RM5 billion Islamic bond or Islamic medium term notes issued by 1MDB’s predecessor Terengganu Investment Authority Berhad (TIA) and its related events, Tong said he understood this topic a bit as “it was because exactly of this transaction that now Tan Sri Nazir Razak approached me to help to see whether there was something wrong with 1MDB at that time”.
Tong agreed that he remains “good friends” with Nazir who is the younger brother of Najib, confirming that The Edge was trying to understand how the transaction was “not normal” and confirmed that The Edge had written an article about this.
Among other things, Tong confirmed that he believed the 1MDB management was one of the parties that allegedly misled the then prime minister Najib, suggesting that Low was also involved.
Shafee: The management was headed by Shahrol, if I say some members of the management working with Jho Low has misled the prime minister and the board?
Tong: Actually when we — if I can elaborate a bit, the whole basis of me getting involved at the request of Datuk Seri Nazir Razak in 2009, 2010 was because we both thought the prime minister of Malaysia was misled.
Shafee: Right, so Datuk Seri Najib’s brother who was Datuk Nazir then, now Tan Sri, so he and you were concerned about Jho Low and some members of the management in 1MDB were actually misleading the prime minister and the board?
Tong replied “that was our initial impression, yes”, but did not elaborate. Shafee did not ask him to elaborate.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes tomorrow, with former Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah expected to testify further and Shafee expected to further cross-examine Tong.
