FORMER SRC International Sdn Bhd CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil forged the signature of non-executive director Suboh Md Yassin on bank documents, Najib Razak’s lawyers told the court today.

The former prime minister’s lead counsel, Mohd Shafee Abdullah, said Suboh’s signature had been forged, and that the signatures on bank transactions that were scanned and provided to AmBank did not match the original copies.

Shafee: I have virtually and conclusively proven that your signature on hard copies had been forged, and… the scanned copies were photocopied and pasted and sent to the bank as though they were real documents.

The rascal behind the forgeries is none other than Nik Faisal… I am putting it you that Nik Faisal forged your signature, scanned your forged signature, and sent it to the bank. Do you agree?

Suboh: Maybe.

Shafee: Fully trusting the CEO is not entirely a wrong stance, provided you have a CEO who is honest and not a crook. Probably, this is the crook.

Suboh: In hindsight, yes.

Shafee: If you had known this, would you have checked? Your presence on the board is to provide impartiality to the board.

Suboh: Yes.

Shafee: Nik Faisal misled you in everything he came to you with?

Suboh: Yeah.

Shafee: In fact, Nik Faisal said “Don’t worry, I’ve got the higher-up”. If he can lie to you about signatures, he could have similarly lied to you that he had spoken to the higher-up. He said, “I’ve got clearance”.

Suboh agreed, but added that it could be a failure of the system in place then.

Earlier, Shafee used a projector to show that the signatures on scanned instruction letters to the bank did not match the original documents, which must be sent to the bank two days after transactions are approved.

He pointed to instances where the signatures on the scanned instruction letters matched perfectly, commenting on signatures that varied in thickness and size.

Najib’s criminal trial today focused on Suboh’s signature, following his admission that there are variations of it on documents related to SRC International.

Asked about the reason for the variations, Suboh said: “Ikut sedap.”

A visibly surprised Shafee asked what he meant, to which Suboh said his signature varies, as does everyone’s.

Suboh said he was questioned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission once on November 27, 2015, by officer Zaid Mohd Dharmizi Syed Musa.

This was followed by another five sessions last year after the May 9 general election, by MACC officer Raub Ghani on May 28, 30 and 31, and August 13 and 15.

After learning that MACC had taken samples of Suboh’s signature, Shafee requested that he provide 20 copies of his signature in court, citing Section 73 of the Evidence Act.

Suboh told the court that he suffered a stroke in 2017, and this may have impaired his motor skills.

Najib’s lawyers have maintained that he was misled by bankers in charge of government-linked accounts who cooperated with individuals, such as wanted financier Low Taek Jho, to acquire funds from SRC International, possibly with the assistance of senior officers within the company.

Shafee had said Najib’s bank accounts were manipulated without his authorisation by “outsiders like Jho Low and others, and some people (at) the bank”.

The lawyer had also told reporters in the trial’s early days that Najib could not possibly have known whether the money credited into his accounts came from illegal sources, and that he “might not have had the full picture” of his bank account transactions.

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.

The 66-year-old is represented by a dozen lawyers led by Shafee.

Attorney-General Tommy Thomas leads the prosecution, while Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali is the sitting judge for the case, which is being heard at the Kuala Lumpur High Court. – July 1, 2019.