JOANNA Yu Ging Ping, the AmBank relationship manager for Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts, takes the stand today as the prosecution enters its final leg in the SRC International Sdn Bhd trial.

Yu, the 54th prosecution witness, has been named several times by the defence, which is keenly interested in her relationship with fugitive financer Low Taek Jho.

Defence lawyers previously suggested that bankers, working in tandem with outsiders such as Low, worked to defraud SRC International, possibly with the help of the entity’s senior executives.

Low, better known as Jho Low, was mentioned again during the trial last week, in a witness statement of a top bank official.

Former AmBank group managing director Cheah Tek Kuang testified that he met Low at Najib’s residence in Kuala Lumpur in early January 2011. Cheah was assisting the former prime minister open two bank accounts, and Low was there to usher him in.

Cheah also denied the defence’s suggestions that he had a close relationship with the Penang-born businessman, telling the court on Thursday that he detests Low.

“I’ll tell you what kind of person he is. He is a person who is never punctual. If there is a meeting at 12pm, he comes at 1.30pm.

“I wouldn’t say he’s a liar, but this sort of attitude, I don’t like it and I detest it. You cannot get close with that type of person.”

He said Low influenced a decision to not include Najib’s name on his current bank account ending with “694”, and to use a code name instead.

Cheah said he learnt of this after the signed application forms were handed over to Yu.

“I was informed by Joanna that the reason for the code name was based on a suggestion by Low, who requested that the account be dealt with, with the strictest confidence.”

He denied having knowledge of communications between Yu and Low.

Former Yayasan 1Malaysia (YR1M) chief executive Un Su Ling also testified last week.

She denied having taken orders from Low when she facilitated the transfer of RM42 million into Najib’s personal AmBank accounts on December 26, 2014 and February 10, 2015.

Ung said the instructions came from Najib’s principal private secretary, Azlin Alis, and that the money was funnelled through Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd (IPSB), the corporate social responsibility partner to YR1M and 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

She denied the defence’s suggestion that the term “our friend” used in text communications with Yu was a reference to Low.

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 Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

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

The Malaysian Insight brings you today’s proceedings live:

5.10pm: Harvinderjit ends his questioning for the day as Shafee has another matter to attend to in Putrajaya. The court will resume proceedings at 10.30am tomorrow.

4.55pm: She says Cheah had made enquiries about Low’s whereabouts. Harvinderjit suggests that someone wouldn’t ask about a person if there’s no fondness for them. Yu says that it’s not true, as Cheah was asking about Low’s whereabouts because of money matters and not necessarily out of fondness.

Yu also agrees with Cheah’s statement that Low was never on time.

4.45pm: Harvinderjit suggests that before 1MDB and even during 1MDB, Low was instrumental in bringing a lot of business to AmBank. Joanna agrees.

4.30pm: Yu says she has not been following the trial until she was allegedly called a “rogue banker”. This was during the cross examination of Uma Devi.

She said Cheah, who previously took the witness stand and said he detested Low, has indeed met with Low for meals. She also says she was not present at these meetings.

4pm: Yu says she had met Sithambaram twice before taking the stand. She said she had explained to Sithambaram that she only communicated with Nik Faisal and Jho Low to notify them of overdraft in the account. She said Sithambaram had called her a rogue banker.

Yu says she is not a rogue banker because she was acting on written instructions.

3.56pm: Harvinderjit begins quizzing Yu on her witness statement, which she drafted with the MACC’s help and read aloud in court earlier this morning.

3.39pm: Harvinderjit asks if his client has ever seen any of the documentation or chats that went on in relation to the accounts. 

Yu replies that she doesn’t believe that the bank had invited Najib to look at the statement of his accounts.

3.35pm: Sithambaram: You have heard allegations that you are a rogue banker acting in concert with Jho Low, which resulted in the present charges against the accused?

Yu: We didn’t act on anything, there was no conspiracy. We simply contacted them when Najib’s accounts were overdrawn. That’s it.

Sithambaram ends his line of questioning. Harvinderjit begins his cross-examination of Yu.

3.32pm: Sithambaram: Were you instructed to, out of conspiracy with Jho Low, carry out fraudulent transactions when you were relationship manager of the accounts? 

Yu: No.

Sithambaram then asks her to respond to allegations the defence had made earlier in the trial that she was a “rogue banker”.

Harvinderjit objects. Sithambaram then says that if the defence is willing to retract its statement about her, then the question would be withdrawn. Harvinderjit does not respond.

3.25pm: Yu says 20 chequebooks were requested for each current account. With four current accounts, this amounted to 80 chequebooks.

3.20pm: Yu tells the court that Jho Low had instructed that statements to “MNR” – a codename for Najib – be sent either to Nik Faisal or himself. The statements were instructed to be hand delivered to Nik Faisal.

She adds this instruction was issued after they were reprimanded by Jho Low for sending a credit card statement to Najib’s offices in Putrajaya.

Sithambaram: Was the purpose of this instruction to hide the statements from Najib? 

Yu: No, I don’t think it was done for that.

2.46pm: She says she was also the relationship manager for SRC International’s bank account.

Sithambaram: Why were you appointed relationship manager for SRC (International)?

Yu: SRC (International) was a subsidiary of 1MDB, and we were handling 1MDB.

2.38pm: Court resumes with Yu taking the stand. She goes through Najib’s current account statements.

1pm: Court breaks for lunch.

12.15pm: She says there were red flags from Bank Negara Malaysia as the accounts were always overdrawn. She adds that she had told Jho Low and Nik Faisal that the bank wanted to close the account. She says the purpose of one particular conversation she had with Nik Faisal was aimed solely at urging Najib to close the account.

She says Nik Faisal never enquired as to why the accounts were overdrawn, implying that he appeared to know the reasoning behind it.

12.04pm: Yu says to her knowledge, Najib and Nik Faisal knew she was in communication with Jho Low. She says yes, she dealt with Jho Low and Nik Faisal. She also received communications from Jho Low that “Datuk Seri” would sign documents or had given him instructions for her to carry out. “Datuk Seri” refers to Najib.

To her, this implied that Najib was aware of Jho Low’s actions.

11.59am: Sithambaram: So, when you couldn’t contact Najib or Nik Faisal, why didn’t you leave it at that?

Yu: We don’t handle current accounts. He’s the prime minister of Malaysia; we can’t return bounced cheques to him. If the prime minister issues a cheque, he should have enough funds. We didn’t want it to come out that the prime minister did not have enough funds.

She said that ordinarily, the cheques would be returned if there were insufficient funds in the accounts.

11.54am: Yu begins going through further communications she had with Jho Low, which mostly pertain to overdrawn money in Najib’s account.

She is asked why she never contacted Najib when she was unable to reach Nik Faisal.

She replies she did not have his direct contact and that she was following the mandate letter she received.

11.44am: Court resumes with Sithambaram continuing his cross-examination. 

Yu says she never acted on Jho Low’s instructions without Nik Faisal’s written instruction as the mandate-holder.

11.18am: Court takes a 10-minute break.

10.58am: In a BBM chat between Yu and Low in May 2014, the latter enquired If the account was overdrawn: “Please check if account is overdrawn, boss just wrote a big cheque.”

The cheque was for RM10 million, the court hears.

10.51am: She says Low was a facilitator for the account. Sithambaram asks, what were the circumstances that led her to believe that he was a facilitator?

Yu: There were times I told him the account was overdrawn, and I couldn’t get to Nik Faisal. He would arrange for payments to be made. He was able to help with the overdrawn account.

She says she communicated with Low via BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). She says he would always address the overdrawn accounts issue, but the bank has never gotten written instructions from him.

10.50am: Sithambaram: Why were you dealing with Jho Low if he was not a mandate holder?

Yu: Low wasn’t the mandate holder to give us written instructions. He was the facilitator of the account when it was to be opened. He was the contact person before the mandate was given to Nik Faisal. Many times, he would send a message that Najib was writing a cheque, and he needed to know if the account was overdrawn.

10.46am: Yu says reminding Nik Faisal to give payment instructions was “typical”, and that if he was in town, the bank would usually get such instructions from him. If he was out of town, however, it was very difficult to get the instructions, and the bank would have to “scramble”.

She says there were constantly “overdrawn situations” when funds were urgently needed, whether for the accounts or credit cards.

She tells the court that she also contacted Low with regard to Najib’s accounts.

10.42am: She reads transcripts of the chats between her and Nik Faisal. Most of the chats were to remind him to give payment instructions for the overdrawn accounts.

She says Nik Faisal told her that she had to figure out a better way to resolve the overdrawn accounts issue.

10.39am: Yu goes through BlackBerry communications she had with Nik Faisal. She says generally, her chats with Nik Faisal were on the accounts, and were mostly to remind him that the accounts were overdrawn.

10.37am: Sithambaram tells Yu that they will “come to Jho shortly” as they are now dealing with Nik Faisal.

10.34am: She says she was in contact with Nik Faisal with regard to the accounts, and if she could not reach him, she would contact Low. She says only the mandate holder, namely Nik Faisal, was authorised to give written instructions on the accounts. She says the bank would contact only Nik Faisal if the accounts were overdrawn.

10.31am: She says Najib was the sole signatory to issue cheques from the current account.

She says the mandate holder is not allowed to take out funds from any account. Only the bank is authorised to perform banking transactions between branches, she says, adding that her job was to liaise between the client and the branch if the client needed statements and account information.

10.30am: Sithambaram: Is it possible for Nik Faisal to issue cheques on behalf of Najib?

Yu: No, he cannot.

S: Did you know if he had issued cheques on behalf of Najib? Did anyone question you on it?

Y: No. No.

10.16am: She is asked whether she could access Najib’s accounts through her computer. She says she could not, and would have to get approval from another division.

She says she met Low after being introducted to him by a teammate. She says Low approached her teammate for acquisition and funding deals.

Sithambaram: What is the purpose of a mandate letter and mandate holder?

Yu: The mandate holder acts on behalf of the account holder.

S: Did you get instructions from Najib beyond the mandate holder’s authority?

Y: We received instructions in writing from Najib on the closure of all the accounts.

10.13am: Sithambaram begins his examination of the witness. Yu is asked about the scope of her job as a relationship manager. She says her job was to service corporate clients and handle banking products.

She is asked if she could carry out transactions for clients. She says she could not, and she could not check account balances either.

10.08am: Yu says she received an instruction letter to debit funds from Najib’s current account to the two credit cards. The standing instruction was signed by Najib himself.

She says the cards were closed on March 11, 2015 after all outstanding balance was settled. She says Nik Faisal paid off the balance through an interbank giro transaction.

10.02am: On the same day, she says, Najib wrote an instruction letter for all of his accounts with the bank to be closed, and the balance to be debited into IPSB’s accounts. She says his accounts were constantly overdrawn, and always had to wait for money to be added before cheques could be cleared.

10am: Yu says on March 3, 2015, she received a request to cancel the Mastercard Platinum and Visa Platinum credit cards by Najib via a letter. She says she was informed by the credit card division that the two cards could not be cancelled because they had an outstanding balance. It was paid on March 10, and then closed.

9.59am: She says because of Najib’s position, the bank would allow his accounts to be overdrawn. The bank would allow cheques to go through, even if the accounts were overdrawn.

9.57am: She says she usually met and dealt with Nik Faisal on issues relating to the accounts, as Nik Faisal was the mandated holder. She says she would forward written instructions from Nik Faisal to the bank.

9.56am: Yu and Lee would handle the statements and accounts, and relate them to Nik Faisal, the court hears. Between 2011 and 2015, the accounts recorded a high transaction volume.

There were many inward funds transferred, says Yu, adding that she checked with Bank Negara Malaysia about this.

9.52am: All statements and chequebooks relating to the accounts were to be kept at the bank, as instructed by Nik Faisal. He also issued an instruction letter dated August 26, 2013, to the bank, stating that:

a) All statements and communications in relation to the accounts are to be under Nik Faisal; and,

b) All statements in relation to the accounts are to be handled by Yu and Daniel Lee.

9.43am: Najib issued a mandate letter on March 10, 2011, allowing then SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil to carry out written instructions for transactions of more than RM250,000, the court hears. Nik Faisal informed the bank that three more accounts were to be opened under Najib’s name.

9.39am: Two credit cards were approved – a Visa Platinum and a Mastercard Platinum, she says.

She says a code name was used for Najib’s account based on a query by Low, to ensure confidentiality. She says she is not sure who decided the code name.

9.36am: She says she had managed the 1MDB accounts since 2010. She confirms that Najib was chairman of the board of advisers.

She says she was contacted by Low to open Najib’s accounts. She says she told him what was required, including identification documents.

It was Low who requested that Cheah assist Najib in opening the accounts.

Yu says she assisted by providing the forms, and she later received the signed forms from Cheah.

She verifies that the accounts – a savings account and a current account – were opened on January 13, 2011.

9.26am: Court is in session. Yu, who is 48 and currently unemployed, is called to the stand. She began working with AmBank, in its investment division, in 1995.

She says she was called for questioning by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission by one “Tuan Rosli” early this year.

The questioning was about bank documents on when SRC International-related accounts were opened and closed.

9.18am: Najib, dressed in a blue suit, is seated in the public gallery. Thomas is present, as is ad hoc prosecutor V. Sithambaram. – July 22, 2019.