ANY attempt to hide communications between AmBank officer Joanna Yu and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho will have consequences, lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah warned today.

Shafee, who is former prime minister Najib Razak’s defence lawyer, said the communications cannot be hidden as they have already been released to the public in the Wall Street Journal and Sarawak Report.

He said the communications are critical in proving Najib’s innocence.

“It’s the most critical (evidence), if they (defence) hide this it will be doomsday for them,” Shafee said.

“It is important because it shows that the transactions are being done in the bank without his involvement. Other people are running the account. If Jho Low misleads the bank what is Najib going to do? How can you blame him?”

Shafee was speaking to reporters outside the court at the end of the fifth day of Najib’s SRC trial.

He was asked whether BNM officer Ahmad Farhan Sharifuddin had found the communications between Yu and Low.

“Well he was trying to find them today he couldn’t find it yet. I’m sure he’ll get it by Monday. Put it this way, if he doesn’t find it we will find it for him,” Shafee said.

“We have copies (also). Trust me, we don’t make empty promises,” he said.

When asked if his copies would be admissible in court, Shafee retorted by asking questioning how Sarawak Report and WSJ had obtained these communications.

“Why don’t you ask how come WSJ and Sarawak report got it? Why don’t you complain about that? Why do you complain about people like us defending him (Najib)? If journalists do it it’s ok. But if a defence lawyer does it using a legitimate document that we want, it’s ridiculous. You’re making an issue out of it. Journalists have got to be a lot more ethical, you cannot simply report for the sake of reporting. You have to be fair,” he snapped back at the reporter.

Yesterday judge Mohd Nazlan allowed Najib’s lawyers to seek the documents on communications between Ambank officers and other individuals from Farhan.

Ad-hoc prosecutor V. Sithambaram accused the defence team of going on a “fishing expedition” to seek for documents that the prosecution was not relying on in the trial, arguing that Najib’s lawyers should first show the relevance of the items sought.

Farhan had, among other things, said he had met with Yu during a July 6, 2015 raid by BNM at AmBank’s office at Level 24 of the AmBank Group building at Jalan Raja Chulan in Kuala Lumpur.

Farhan could not recall if electronics were seized from Yu during the July 2015 raid, but was able to confirm that items that were confiscated from the bank officer are in his custody and that he would have to check what was seized.

He said he also took down Yu’s statement about one or two months before the raid in relation to banking transactions linked to 1MDB. – April 18, 2019.