KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today said it is unbelievable to think that he would stake his position as the head of government at the time to commit a crime for just US$20 million of 1MDB’s funds in 2011 in his personal AmIslamic bank account.
Challenging this accusation that he would abuse his powers for US$20 million, Najib pointed out he was the most powerful official in Malaysia then as the prime minister.
“Yet, the prosecution alleges that I – while holding the two most powerful positions in terms of being the head of the government of Malaysia and the head of the financial sector of public spending, prime minister and finance minister respectively – would jeopardise my political career and reputation, built over 40 years, to commit a criminal act for the sake of receiving US$9,999,977 on two separate occasions.
“This is a desperate claim that only fools would believe,” he told the High Court when testifying in his 1MDB trial.
Najib was responding to the prosecution’s assertion under his first power abuse charge that he abused his position to direct the 1MDB board of directors to pass a resolution authorising the company to join a US$1 billion joint venture with PetroSaudi International Limited in order to receive the US$20 million.
The prosecution said Najib received the US$20 million in two tranches of US$9,999,977 or over US$9.99 million on February 24, 2011 and on June 14, 2011, which originated from US$700 million – from 1MDB’s US$1 billion for the joint venture – that was diverted in 2009 to Low Taek Jho’s Good Star Limited.
Najib said he was not involved in the misappropriation of 1MDB money, and claimed there is no evidence that any of 1MDB’s US$700 million misappropriated through Good Star came to him. While the prosecution produced a money trail report showing how US$20 million originating from 1MDB’s US$700 million reached Najib’s account, the man himself challenged the assertion.
Najib said the money trail report had distorted the facts.
He described the power abuse charge against him as baseless and absurd, contrasting the idea that he was willing to undertake a crime for just tens of millions with others who he claimed received hundreds of millions in 1MDB funds.
He named the Malaysian fugitive better known as Jho Low, and PetroSaudi officials, notably its CEO Tarek Obaid and its chief investment officer Patrick Mahony as having received much more money than him.
Najib said the prosecution paints him as the “most generous and self-sacrificing” alleged co-conspirator in history, but called this claim illogical and defying common sense.
“The prosecution’s narrative essentially alleges that I generously enabled everyone to enrich themselves with hundreds of millions while I, purportedly Jho Low’s ‘mirror image’ and the so-called joint mastermind of this scheme, received a mere fraction of the spoils years later, while on the other hand Jho Low immediately would receive a total of US$547 million, Tarek Obaid US$120 million and Patrick Mahony US$33 million,” he said.
He said even Mahony as a company employee received US$33 million, adding that Low and Tarek used the hundreds of millions to buy multi-million dollar properties, luxury jewellery and other extravagant items.
Najib claimed that Low, Tarek and Mahony orchestrated an elaborate deception to misappropriate and siphon off 1MDB’s US$700 million, and said he was not involved in this scheme.
“Importantly, the court made no mention of me as a participant in these fraudulent transactions or as a recipient of any laundered funds,” he said, referring to the Switzerland Federal Criminal Court’s August 28 decision which convicted Tarek and Mahony for their role in a US$1.8 billion 1MDB fraud case.
In the 1MDB trial, Najib is facing 25 criminal charges, including four charges of abusing his power for RM2.27 billion for his own financial benefit, and 21 money laundering charges involving over RM2 billion of 1MDB funds.
On the first day of trial, the prosecution said it would prove that Najib had made it clear to 1MDB officers and 1MDB directors that Low was his alter ego, and that Low was Najib’s mirror image and that they had acted as one.
