NAJIB Razak was misled by bankers in charge of government-linked accounts who cooperated with people such as Low Taek Jho to steal from SRC International, said the former prime minister’s lawyer.
Muhammmad Shafee Abdullah said cross-examination of a witness supported the defence’s argument that the accused’s account was manipulated without his authorisation by “outsiders like Jho Low and others and some people in the bank.”
“This is why I used the words ‘rogue bankers’,” Shafee told reporters after today’s hearing in the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
Defence lawyers who cross-examined AmBank manager R. Uma Devi asserted in court today that the signatures on some of the cheques amounting to millions of ringgit did not match the original.
“Datuk Seri Najib does not know this (unauthorised transactions). Otherwise how do you explain signatures that were forged? Even the banker agreed,” Shafee said, referring to Uma.
Shafee also accused former SRC International director and CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil of complicity in an alleged scheme to mislead Najib.
Nik Faisal is missing and reported to be in Indonesia.
At the trial today, defence lawyers charged that bank statements could have been kept from Najib, which means he is not liable for the money transfers in and out of his accounts.
“If it went well, according to documentation, Nik Faisal should get it (bank statements),” Shafee told reporters. “Nik Faisal then should alert, this is our instruction because my boss has instructed it.”
“Neither Datuk Seri Najib and, in certain instances, without whether Nik Faisal was even aware (of transactions). But in some other instances, it looked like Nik Faisal is part of the conspiracy.”
Shafee said the defence had wanted further evidentiary documents from banks in relation to e-mails and Blackberry messages between three AmBank relationship managers and ten individuals, including key figures linked to 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
‘Somebody is playing the fool with the accounts’
Shafee said it would support the defence’s claim that softcopy of cheques, send by fax or e-mail, contained forged signatures.
“When you send a soft copy, they receive it on the same day. The relationship manager will call the person who send. Can I confirm that this is your instruction?”
“Now, who should confirm this. It should only be Nik Faisal, because he is the operator of Najib’s account. He should be the only one confirming.
“But if you see the e-mails, the confirmation was asked by the banker and somebody else – third parties. There are conversations, we will show you, between the relationship manager Joanna Yu with Jho Low. But that hasn’t come up yet. But that will come up. We’ve got the evidence.”
Shafee said hard copies of the cheques should have been sent within three days but some arrived two months later and some did not arrive at all.
“For you to forge the hardcopy, you have to physically forge the signature or you get the actual person to sign it. But when you scan it to fax it, you can just cut and paste.
“You cut and you paste the signature, in this case, Datuk Suboh’s,” Shafee said, referring to former SRC International director Suboh Md Yasin, who is a signatory to Najib’s accounts.
“We are confident he did not sign (the cheques). A lot are forged by people without Datuk Seri’s (Najib’s) knowledge,” said Shafee.
“That is why Suboh’s signature is exactly identical (on every cheque). If you take tracing paper and you copy all the seven signatures, it would be 100% identical. None of you, including me, can sign identically. That’s not human.
“That proves somebody is playing the fool with the accounts. That is why we say Datuk Seri Najib is a victim.
Case is ‘going to expose a lot of people’
“The instructions were never given by Datuk Seri Najib and, in fact, we now suspect, even his own representative was acting in cahoots with some other people in order to mislead the entire account.
“This case is every interesting. It’s going to expose a lot of people. This is going to be almost like a movie because the person you suspected most turns out, in the end I think, a victim.”
Earlier, during Uma’s cross-examination, defence counsel Harvinderjit Singh asked her if Najib would be liable for wrongdoing if his bank statements were kept from him.
Deputy public prosecutor V. Sithambaram objected, saying the line of questioning amounted to conjecture.
Harvinderjit said he was merely asking Uma whether she agreed that Najib was not liable for fraudulent, unauthorised transactions of his accounts if he did not receive his bank statements and if knowledge of the transactions were kept from him.
To another question from Harvinderjit, who, in reference to a cheque, asked if ”someone had cut and pasted the signature” on it, Uma told the court that if the signature matches the original sample, the transaction is processed.
Harvinderjit continued to make comparisons between hard copy originals and facsimiled or e-mailed versions, saying the signatures were sometimes as as different as “chalk and cheese.”
Najib, who sat in the dock during proceedings, faces three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money-laundering and one count of abuse of power over funds amounting to RM42 million linked to SRC International.
The trial, presided over by Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, will resume on Monday. – April 25, 2019.
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