FORMER 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) chairman Mohd Bakke Salleh told the Kuala Lumpur High Court today that parts of his testimony in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report in 2016 on 1MDB was omitted. 

“A lot of what I had said during the meeting was not mentioned in the (PAC) report. I spelled out the four conditions that were not mentioned in the final PAC report.

“The way my testimony was written in the PAC report (indicated) I had no oversight. It doesn’t mean what you read in the PAC report represented what I said in the session,” he said during cross-examination today.

The 68-year-old was referring to the four conditions the 1MDB board had set for the joint venture with PetroSaudi to proceed.

Bakke is the 15th witness in the trial against former prime minister Najib Razak for misappropriating RM2.28 billion in 1MDB funds.

Najib faces 25 charges – four for abuse of power and 21 for money laundering – for offences committed between 2011 and 2013.

Najib’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, and Bakke then got into a heated argument over the PAC report.

Shafee asked if the witness stood by his testimony during the PAC investigation.

“You (Bakke) said (in your testimony) that with the benefit of hindsight, you lost your cool and were ‘flabbergasted’ with the management for disobeying the board of directors’ orders.

“You also said that you should not have resigned.”

Bakke then interjected, telling Shafee not to put words in his mouth.

“My memory is still okay. I don’t know where you are plucking this from. I had said ‘with the benefit of hindsight, I should not have served in 1MDB’.”

Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah then told Bakke that as a witness, he had to answer the questions posed to him.

Bakke then said he stood by his testimony, but added that the full statement for the proceedings was not in the report.

The PAC report on 1MDB was released in April 2016.

According to the PAC, the briefings were carried out with the Treasury secretary-general and the Economic Planning Unit’s director-general.

This was followed by interviews with Bakke and former chief executive officer Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi.

However, the report did not implicate Najib in the sovereign wealth fund scandal.

The PAC had identified 1MDB management’s failure to invest without any due diligence being conducted, namely pumping in US$1 billion (RM4.38 billion) in a joint venture with PetroSaudi International Ltd. – May 17, 2022.