KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 16 — The police had acted fairly when investigating the 1MDB money laundering allegations against former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and found that there was no “unseen hand” involved as alleged by the defence, the High Court heard today.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Foo Wei Min, who is the 48th prosecution witness in Najib's 1MDB trial, repeatedly disagreed that he had used unfair methods of investigation on Najib who was also formerly a finance minister.
During trial today, lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah pressed Foo on why the latter had not asked Najib during police investigations in 2018 about four “Saudi donation” letters.
The four letters from 2011 to 2014 were purportedly from a Saudi prince promising huge sums of money to Najib as gifts.
Foo said Najib was the one who had given these four letters — without being requested — to him during the investigations, but confirmed he did not question the latter on the documents during the probe. Previously, Foo confirmed that Najib presented only the photocopied version of the letters.
Shafee then insisted that Foo's failure to ask Najib in 2018 to explain the letters meant the investigation was unfair and biased. Foo disagreed.
Shafee: I'm putting it to you, this entire investigation with the 21 charges was at the instance of an unseen hand to just pretend to investigate but to get Datuk Seri Najib to be charged.
Foo: Not agree. The investigation has been carried out thoroughly, fairly on the accused person.
The 21 charges refers to the 21 money laundering charges that Najib is facing in this 1MDB trial.
Foo also disagreed with Shafee's claim that it was an unfair method of investigation for the police to have recorded Najib's statement before he was charged, on the day he was charged and after he was charged.
He agreed with Shafee that a suspect's statement would usually be recorded before charging, but said there are no time constraints.
He added that it is not against the law for a statement to be recorded in order for investigations to be carried out, even after the accused has been charged.
Shafee had earlier claimed in court that it was unfair for Foo not to have asked Najib about the four purported Saudi donation letters when it was the thrust of his defence and as the “whole world has heard that Datuk Seri Najib always believed" the money in his personal bank account is a “donation from Saudi”.
But Foo disagreed, as he said investigations are not limited to just questioning, but also includes other actions such as the police's attempt to get the original copies of the letter and to get the letter's issuer to confirm the contents.
Foo said the police did make a request through the Attorney General's Chambers for mutual legal assistance to obtain cooperation from Saudi Arabia on the four letters, but were not successful in the attempt to get cooperation.
Foo also said investigators were “suspicious of the contents" of the four letters given by Najib.
The prosecution witness said police were sceptical about whether or not the letters were “genuine”.
He affirmed that money did flow into Najib's bank account from Saudi-based bank Riyad Bank's accounts, but added that it could not be determined if the “Saudi donation” letters' contents were true.
He said it could not be determined if the money from the purported Ministry of Finance in Saudi Arabia which flowed to Najib’s bank accounts were a “donation".
“Of course, I tried to investigate the genuineness of the letter, to contact the Arabs, but however to no avail, because we have no response from the Arabs, cannot be cooperated and no response through mutual legal assistance,” he said, confirming that he was only told that the Arabs did provide a statement to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
Foo confirmed he did not ask MACC to provide that information to him.
Later in his court testimony, Foo indicated the contents in the four purported "Saudi donation” letters from Najib were not proven to be true.
“We tried to investigate the genuineness of the documents, so we have put in efforts to determine whether it is true. If let's say we can get the facts, then obviously it is a fact. But we can't," he said.
Foo agreed with Shafee that he did not have evidence to say the four letters from 2011 to 2014 do not exist.
The four purported letters addressed to Najib were signed off by the alleged Saudi prince — alternately as “Saud Abdulaziz AL-Saud”, “HRH Prince Saud Abdulaziz Al-Saud”, and “Saud Abdulaziz Al Saud”. The four letters were dated February 1, 2011 with a promised gift of US$100 million, November 1, 2011 (US$375 million), March 1, 2013 (US$800 million) and June 1, 2014 (£50 million).
These four letters were previously produced in this 1MDB trial by Najib’s lawyers in the form of photocopied versions of the documents.
In December 2022, the prosecution argued that Najib will not be able to use these four letters to defend himself over the RM2.27 billion as other courts had found the letters to be a fabrication.
Shafee then singled out the third donation letter which was the only one to have mentioned Tanore Finance Corp as one of the entities the purported Saudi prince would use to send up to US$800 million as a “gift” to Najib.
Shafee accused Foo of using an “unfair method of investigation” by not asking Najib about this letter which had the word “Tanore”, when the money laundering investigation was based on the 1MDB scheme's phase involving Tanore.
But Foo disagreed as he said money which passed through Tanore to Najib's account actually originated from 1MDB's subsidiary 1MDB Global Investments Limited (1MDB GIL).
“Because throughout the investigation, we already have the money trail which shows the money come from Tanore is not actually from any Arabs or any Ministry of Finance of Saudi, but is from 1MDB GIL, therefore I confirmed that, that is sufficient for the investigation. It's enough,” the witness said.
As for the first investigation session on August 27, 2018, Shafee highlighted that Najib had said he does not know Tanore and assumed money which came in was a donation from Saudi Arabia.
Foo then explained that he did not use the purported donation letter mentioning Tanore to confront Najib at that time, as he had not received the letter from the latter yet.
Foo agreed he received the four purported donation letters from Najib before the latter was charged on September 20, 2018 and agreed he could have asked the former prime minister about those documents before the charges were pressed against the latter.
Among other things, Foo said the most important part of his investigation was on the source of money which reached Najib's personal bank account, rather than on other matters such as the late Saudi ruler King Abdullah.
Shafee suggested: “Because you did not investigate Datuk Seri Najib's storyline that what he received was he thought was money from King Abdullah, you did not investigate that part of it, you therefore did not investigate if Datuk Seri Najib had the criminal intention when he received the money.”
But Foo disagreed, saying: “Because we did investigate and we found out the source of money is not from King Abdullah – which I have not seen and I do not know – but we have identified the source of money is from 1MDB GIL."
Najib's trial is in relation to more than RM2 billion of 1MDB funds that were misappropriated and alleged to have entered his private AmIslamic bank accounts, and involves all four phases of the 1MDB scheme.
Foo's investigation was focused on money laundering that took place during the 1MDB scheme's third phase, where Tanore Finance Corp — owned by Malaysian fugitive Low Taek Jho's associate Eric Tan Kim Loong — is alleged to have channelled RM2.081 billion of 1MDB GIL's money to Najib's AmIslamic bank account codenamed “AmPrivate Banking-MR”.
Najib's wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor was present in the courtroom today.
Tasek Gelugor MP Datuk Wan Saiful Wan Jan from Bersaty was also seen speaking to Najib as in the courtroom.
Najib's trial before judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes this afternoon.
