LEAD prosecutor V. Sithambaram today described the board of directors (BOD) of SRC International Sdn Bhd as “puppets dancing to Najib Razak’s tune”, saying the running of SRC was a “one-man show” by the former prime minister.

“SRC was supposed to be run by Ismee Ismail (former SRC chairman) and Suboh Mohd Yassin (former SRC director) but the person running the day-to-day (operations) was actually Najib. There was nothing left for company directors to do,” the lawyer told the court. 

“Najib appointed all the members of the SRC BOD who were unable to dance to any other tune except to that of his.” 

The lawyer said Kuala Lumpur High Court judge, Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who sentenced Najib to 12 years in prison and fined him RM210 million for misappropriation of RM42 million of SRC International funds, has rightly found numerous circumstances that demonstrate Najib’s involvement in the running of SRC.

Most of the evidence was derived from the testimonies of Ismee, who was the 39th prosecution witness. 

Ismee had said that the decisions of the SRC BOD were based on the instructions of Najib, conveyed by SRC CEO, Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, who acted as the link between the SRC BOD and Najib. 

“Any queries raised by the SRC BOD would generally be retorted with Nik Faisal telling them it had been agreed to by ‘kerajaan’, which in Ismee’s mind was none other than Najib,” Sithambaram said. 

According to Ismee, the first shareholder instruction he had received in August 2011 on SRC formed the basis of almost all the resolutions the SRC BOD executed.

It contained all-encompassing instructions of Najib covering the operational, governance and business aspects of SRC. 

This includes the acceptance of the first RM2 billion loan from retirement fund KWAP, the appointment of all members of the board, the opening of SRC’s bank account at AmBank, the establishment of a wholly owned subsidiary of SRC to be registered in the British Virgin Islands, the opening of accounts with Julius Baer in Hong Kong/Dubai with a deposit of US$100 million and with Falcon Private Bank in Dubai with a deposit of US$500 million, the establishment of a joint-venture between a then yet-to-be-established subsidiary of SRC and AABAR, and the contribution of US$500 million in cash to the joint-venture.

“All of these were on his own doing, a one-man show,” Sithambaram told the court.

On July 28 last year, Nazlan had found the Pekan MP guilty on seven charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT), money laundering and abuse of power.

Najib, 67, is currently out on bail of RM2 million in two sureties.

The appeal hearing continues before a three-man bench led by Court of Appeal judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil.

The two other judges are Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera and Has Zanah Mehat. – April 19, 2021.