The Malaysian Insight

NAJIB Razak is a victim of a conspiracy that involved Low Taek Jho and former SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, as well as rogue bankers, the defence said in its closing submission today.

Lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told the Kuala Lumpur High Court the defence’s case proved to be more complicated than expected due to the number of personalities involved and “prejudice” the former prime minister suffered by virtue of his position.

“It is important to remind this court that when we appeared before Yang Arif, we did express our worry about the kind of prejudice that this case was going to receive, both in the public (and private) domain and that, possibly, it would creep in the judicial circle as well,” Shafee told judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.

“This is a case that has become complicated simply because of the personalities involved. Namely, that there is this man with immense power who was the prime minister.

“And, therefore, I would say by virtue of the position that he was in, there’s a lot of prejudice that could be drawn against him, like some of the questions my learned friend (ad hoc prosecutor V. Sithambaram) had raised, saying that as a man of knowledge and a man of finance, how could he not be aware of the full circumstances of the money coming into his account?

“The truth of the matter is that it has become complicated for us to produce the best defence possible. Namely because our defence, which is a defence of stating the truth, that Najib himself is a victim of (a) scam and series of misrepresentations by the likes of Jho Low and Nik Faisal and a bunch of rogue bankers, like Joanna Yu and other senior management of SRC.”

The defence has consistently maintained that Najib was never aware of the source of the RM42 million that entered his accounts between December 2014 and February 2015, the source of which the prosecution has not been able to convincingly determine either.

Shafee said evidence showed that executives and rogue bankers carried out instructions at the behest of Low for the latter’s own interest, who devised elaborate machinations to suit his own purposes that Najib was not aware of.

The lawyer said the question of how RM42 million entered into Najib’s account does not automatically infer his client’s guilt.

“The public tends to think, as did the previous A-G (former attorney-general Tommy Thomas) in all the short bursts of submissions that were made, that this alone is equated to the evidence of a smoking gun,” Shafee said.

“Which is not true. Money, we would submit, is only one ingredient, but over and above this, the bigger ingredient that one has to look at (is) where is the personal interest that my client received in these transactions?”

“Did he need to declare his interest or whether it is personal, as held in the prosecution’s case, and most importantly, did he have knowledge?

“Did he know that the RM42 million is in fact related to (SRC International) and secondly, whether the RM42 million that travelled in such a circuitous way, from SRC layered by two other companies (Gandingan Mentari and Ihsan Perdana).”

Shafee also argued that if unlawful gratification was the intended crime, a government-linked entity would not be used.

“How silly would it be if the averment is that a man of finance and a man of knowledge, would do it in such a silly fashion (as) to bring it into the personal account, and that money went through SRC?

“The prosecution argued that the RM42 million was from money borrowed from Retirement Fund Inc (KWAP). What sort of character my client would have to be to do that?

“There is no evidence to show he is that type of character, that he is capable of taking his own money from the ministry and on top of that, money borrowed from KWAP,” the lawyer said.

Najib is charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money-laundering and one count of abuse of power. He faces up to 20 years imprisonment, if convicted.

The defence maintained that Najib was under the impression that the funds he spent on political activities, corporate social responsibility programmes and other personal expenditures originated from Saudi Arabia.

Najib’s lawyers also maintained that Low, commonly known as Jho Low, who was a 1Malaysia Development Bhd intermediary figure, was behind the transactions that led the RM42 million being present in Najib’s accounts. – June 4, 2020.