- Datuk Seri Najib Razak said he wanted to know who Goldman Sachs’ former banker Tim Leissner had bribed, but denies he was among the 1MDB officials and government officials bribed.
- Najib said he has “nothing to hide” in both matters involving the huge sums of money which entered his personal bank account, and Leissner’s alleged bribery.
- Najib also said Jho Low was not his proxy for 1MDB matters, and said a former 1MDB CEO's deletion of Low's emails were not to protect him as the then prime minister
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today denied that he had received any bribes from Goldman Sachs’ then Southeast Asia chairman Tim Leissner.
He stressed that he had wanted the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to find out which Malaysian government officials and 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) officials took kickbacks from Leissner.
Testifying in his corruption case involving 1MDB’s RM2 billion funds, Najib said he had in 2018 lodged a report to the MACC to ask for an investigation, after Leissner’s admission in guilty plea in a US court of having paid bribes and kickbacks to influence government officials to enable Goldman Sachs to receive business from 1MDB.
Najib said it was important to identify who these 1MDB officials and government officials are, as he said the same 1MDB officials could be the same ones testifying against him in the 1MDB trial.
“He said he bribed 1MDB officials and government officials, therefore to ensure the course of justice and to ensure whether these witnesses are credible in the first place, their identities should be known,” he told the High Court, saying that this would be important for his defence in the 1MDB trial.
Najib said he himself does not know who were allegedly bribed by Leissner.
“I have nothing to hide, because I could be construed as a government official too, but I want to know who these people are, that’s why I made that report in 2018. And this is 2024, what have they done?” he asked.
When his lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah asked if he was not “worried Tim Leissner could identify you as a government officer”, Najib replied: “Yes, because I was government, but I wanted to know the truth, because I have nothing to hide.”
Shafee: Did Tim Leissner pay you as a government official as he testified he paid?
Najib: Not at all, we need to know the truth. Yang Arif, we need to know the truth.
Najib confirmed that the MACC had not updated him on his report or recorded a further statement from him, saying: “No, they have not, but more importantly they owe this to the people and for the sake of good governance, for the sake of justice. And I like to quote the old adage, we all know justice must be done and seen to be done.”
He claimed: “It’s like gone into a big black hole in the universe, in the galaxy”.
Earlier, Najib claimed that 1MDB’s former CEO Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi had deleted emails from Malaysian fugitive Low Taek Jho to hide his role in the latter’s 1MDB scheme.
Previously, Shahrol told the High Court that he had deleted all emails containing Low’s talking points on 1MDB matters without making any copies, as Low had in mid-2015 ordered him to do so as it involves major secrets and national security and to protect Najib’s interests.
But Najib challenged Shahrol’s court testimony as the latter had not shown these talking points in court, and also said his actions in following Low’s instructions to delete without asking the 1MDB board or relevant authorities were highly questionable.
Najib said Shahrol should not have deleted these emails at the request of Low — who had no official role in 1MDB — but should have handled them according to government protocols if the emails truly involved national security.
“I believe the deletion of these emails had nothing to do with protecting me but rather with concealing communications that would have exposed Shahrol’s own complicity in the fraudulent schemes with Jho Low,” he said, suggesting that those emails likely had evidence of Shahrol’s role in the 1MDB scheme.
Shahrol had also said the talking points were “100 per cent consistent” with Najib’s actions and were proof that Low was the then prime minister’s proxy in 1MDB financial matters.
But Najib said the alignment of his actions with Low’s talking points would not mean that Low was his proxy or had influenced his decisions in 1MDB matters, arguing that this is because he was merely carrying out his official duties in line with the 1MDB’s board of directors’ decisions.
“Shahrol’s testimony, coupled with his destruction of evidence, points to a deliberate attempt to obscure his own role in the schemes orchestrated by Jho Low. His actions were not aimed at protecting national security or my interests but rather at shielding himself from scrutiny.
Among other things, Najib today claimed that he had been “transparent from the very beginning” by informing AmBank managing director Cheah Tek Kuang that he would be receiving money as a donation from Saudi ruler King Abdullah when he opened his AmIslamic bank account.
“I had nothing to hide,” Najib said, adding that he had spent the money for political and corporate social responsibility (CSR) purposes according to the trust placed on him by King Abdullah.
“I meticulously recorded all my expenditures by issuing cheques from the AmIslamic account to ensure transparency and proper documentation,” he said.
This week, Najib had told the High Court that he believed three sums which he received in his personal AmIslamic bank account — RM60 million in 2011, RM90 million in 2012, US$681 million (RM2.08 billion) in 2013 — were all political donations to him from the late Saudi ruler King Abdullah.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes next Monday.
