FORMER Yayasan Rakyat 1Malaysia CEO Ung Su Ling returns to the witness stand today to be cross-examined by the defence as Najib Razak’s SRC International trial enters its 39th day.

The prosecution’s 49th witness told the court yesterday that she was instructed by a senior aide of the former prime minister to facilitate transfers amounting to RM42 million into Najib’s bank accounts.

Ung told the Kuala Lumpur High Court that the transactions were funnelled through Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd, the corporate social responsibility partner to YR1M as well as 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

Ung said she was instructed by the late Azlin Alias, Najib’s principal private secretary. Azlin died in a helicopter crash in 2015.

The transactions were RM27 million on December 26, 2014 to Najib’s AmIslamic bank account ending with “880”, RM10 million on December 26, 2014 to the AmIslamic bank account ending with “906” and RM5 million on February 10, 2015 to the account ending with “880”.

After RM42 million was transferred to Ihsan Perdana, Azlin instructed Ung to inform its CEO Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman to approve three transactions to two AmBank private accounts.

“I was only told the money was for CSR (corporate social responsibility) purposes,” Ung said, adding that she was never told who the owner of the AmBank accounts was.

In the February 2015 transaction, Ung said she interacted with AmBank relationship manager Joanna Yu.

Between 2013 and 2015, YR1M channelled RM170 million into SRC International to carry out CSR activities. When it was established in 2013, YR1M received a grant of RM210 million from 1MDB, Ung testified.

Ung told the court she had also worked at The Wynton Private Equity Group (M) Sdn Bhd from 2004 to 2006, and was aware the firm was owned by fugitive Penang businessman Low Taek Jho.

She also worked at Merican & Partners Asset Management, where she handled investments for Low. She then worked at CIMB Bank, after which she applied to be YR1M CEO through Dennis See, whom she knew handled 1MDB’s CSR initiatives.

She said that See was her cousin and that she had not been interviewed for the post.

Najib’s charges are linked to RM4 billion in loans issued to SRC International in 2011 and 2012, for which he is accused of receiving RM42 million in his personal accounts in 2014 and 2015.

He faces three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money-laundering and one count of abuse of power.

Najib, 66, is represented by a dozen lawyers led by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

Attorney-General Tommy Thomas is leading the prosecution, while Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali is the presiding judge.

The Malaysian Insight brings you today’s proceedings live:

5.00pm: Court adjourns for the day. The trial resumes with the same witness at 9am tomorrow.

4.47pm: The witness says the meeting at Najib’s house was the only time he ever met the former prime minister.

Cheah said that he was not aware that Jho Low would be at the house that night he went to open the account with Najib.

Cheah said Najib told him that night that Najib was opening the accounts because he expected political donations were going to come from Saudi Arabia. He added that Najib did not mention the exact figure of political donations, but did say that it would be in the region of RM100 million to RM200 million.

Cheah said that Najib asked him to follow all rules and comply with SOPs when opening the account.

Cheah is shown a credit card form bearing Najib’s signature, but Cheah is unsure if Najib had signed the form in front of him.

4.13pm: Farhan Read begins his cross examination about the KWAP loan approval process.

4.02pm: Cheah is shown a photograph of Jho Low and is asked to identify him.

3.54pm: He is now going through how the KWAP investment panel had approved the two RM2 billion loans to SRC International as testified by other witnesses such as Wan Abdul Aziz.

3.50pm: He said on July 19, 2011, a special investment panel meeting was called.

At the meeting, chairman Wan Abdul Aziz had told the board that Najib had asked for the loan to be expedited and that RM2 billion would suffice.

The board had decided on July 5 to only give RM1 billion prior to Najib’s instruction.

3.42pm: Cheah is walking through the investment panel’s decision-making processes.

3.40pm: He says he was a member of Retirement Fund Inc’s (KWAP) investment panel until February 2016 but took a short break in 2007.

3.38pm: He says there was a codename used in the account form to maintain anonymity as requested by Low to Yu.

3.30pm: He says Low was at Najib’s residence the night Cheah went there to assist Najib in opening his account.

He says once he was done with Najib, he went to see former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz. He says she reminded him that opening an account must follow banking rules and regulations.

3.28pm: Cheah says he was informed by Yu that Najib had wanted to open an account at AmBank.

He says he had personally dealt with opening of Najib’s account in 2011. He had liaised with Azlin.

He says he had gone to Najib’s house to assist in opening the account for him.

3.24pm: Cheah Tek Kuang, 72, is called up to the witness stand. He was a non-executive director for AmBank.

3.11pm: She is asked if Najib made a police report against her for transferring the money into his account. She says she doesn’t know.

Ung is let go from the stand.

3.09pm: She is also asked about the term she used in chat logs that refers to “our friend”.

She says it’s a way to refer to someone without mentioning their name.

She says if she was referring to the prime minister in her messages to Yu, she would refer to him as “Uncle”.

3.07pm: Ung is asked if she was personally instructed by Low to deposit RM42 million into Najib’s accounts. She replies, no.

She also says she did not know about Putra Perdana at that time.

3.04pm: Shafee concludes his cross examination. Sithambaram has a few questions to clarify with Ung.

3.01pm: Shafee suggests she deleted Azlin’s messages and threw away her phone because there were no communications between her and Azlin. Ung disagrees.

2.59pm: Shafee implies she had made up the conversation with Azlin, instructing her about the money. Ung says she disagrees.

2.55pm: Shafee: Would preserving those messages been ideal?

Ung: Yes. But I just wanted to say I didn’t think there was anything wrong. If I had a doubt, I would have kept it and it would’ve been used to back up my testimony today.

2.53pm: She tells Shafee that when Azlin passed away, it was painful for her to see his contact on her phone. She then deleted all his messages and his contact from her phone.

Shafee says there is nothing in writing to suggest that she had acted on the instruction of Azlin. Ung says in hindsight, she should not have deleted those messages as it would have protected her in this case.

2.45pm: Shafee asks if she remembers when she first read about the 1MDB controversy. She said she can’t remember but remembers news broke in 2014 or 2015.

2.40pm: Najib is back and takes his place at the dock. Nazlan reprimands Najib and reminds him to be punctual.

Shafee to continue the cross examination.

2.30pm: Court resumes. Najib isn’t present and the defence tells the Jjdge that he will be up shortly. Harvinderjit has requested a short stand down so the defence can find Najib.

12.50pm: Court adjourns for a lunch break.

12.45pm: Ung says because Azlin was involved in the RM42 million transfer, she suspected that it had something to do with Najib, but claims she has no idea that the transfer from YR1M went into his personal accounts.

Harvinderjit suggests she doesn’t want to disclose her relationship with Low because she will be embroiled in this case.

11.50am: Ung tells Harvinderjit that the chat logs he is referring to are taken out of context

10.51am: They go through chat logs between Ung and Yu about the transactions.

10.41am: Harvinderjit tells Ung to stop looking at the prosecution when answering.

He asks her to look at the judge. Things get heated as V. Sithambaram stands up to defend her.

10.132am: There was a chat group in which Ung admits that Yu and Low were part of.

She said she was told by Azlin to prepare a board paper for a certain amount of money.

There was one part which concerned a cash transaction. It was put in the board paper that the sum amounting to RM2 million was to be taken out as cash.

Harvinderjit asks if Low instructed her to draft the board paper. She said Azlin instructed her, not Low.

10.22am: In another message, Yu Joanna tells her that she is meeting “our friend” tonight. Ung said it’s not Low.

10.15am: Harvinderjit asks her if the term “our friend” cropped up in chats between her and Yu.

He asks her if it is indeed Jho Low. She said no. It could be Jho Low and it couldn’t be Jho Low.

Harvinderjit presses her further but she remains adamant that it could or couldn’t be Low.

There’s another chat log which Yu and Ung refer to “our friend”. Ung said it refers to Azlin instead of Low.

10.09am: Soon after banking in RM42 million, Ung found out that it went into Najib’s accounts.

Months later, Ung met Najib and he told her that it “was damaging” to his reputation and career and he didn’t know that the money from Ihsan Perdana, which passed through YR1M, was transferred into his accounts.

She said he didn’t know the money was coming in. He appeared annoyed when he found out. She said that she had apologised to Najib and offered to resign from her position at YR1M.

9.51am: Shortly after that meeting, Azlin sent her a WhatsApp message telling her that the money was in YR1M’s account and gave her two account numbers to transfer the funds to.

9.49am: She is now speaking about a meeting she had with the late Azlin Alias in the prime minister’s office in 2014.

In her witness statement yesterday, she said this was when Azlin told her about the money that was to be deposited into YR1M accounts.

9.45am: She said YR1M had three accounts in AmBank – for operations, donors and another to receive funds from gaming sources, such as Genting Group.

Ung communicated with Joanna Yu primarily in AmBank and also elaborated that she didn’t have much dealings with Crystal Yap and others.

She met Yu “once in a while” and they went out for lunch once but most of the meetings were held in AmBank.

9.40am: YR1M had only 20 staff members and in order to execute more projects nationwide, it had to partner other groups to execute projects, Ung said.

Ihsan Perdana was one of those partners.

9.35am: Ung worked with Lotus Asset Management which changed its name to Merican & Partners.

She said it’s not true that she did work for Jho Low because the firm never managed money for Low.

She said that she knew Low in 2000 to 2001, adding that he was interested to come back after his studies in the US.

She said he was doing some business online and he was looking to do similar start-ups in Malaysia.

9.26am: Harvinderjit Singh begins cross-examining Ung Su Lin.

She said she was called by MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission) at the end of 2018 and had two meetings with them.

This is to record her witness statement which she read yesterday. – July 17, 2019.