AMBANK took the initiative to contact Low Taek Jho when Najib Razak’s account was overdrawn to prevent the possibility of the prime minister’s cheque bouncing, said former bank relationship manager Joanna Yu.

“When there are insufficient funds, we do not think having the prime minister of Malaysia’s cheques returned would be good,” said Yu when examined by ad hoc prosecutor V. Sithambaram.

“When you issue a cheque, you must have sufficient funds.

“Maybe it was an oversight, but we did not want it to come up that the prime minister had insufficient funds.”

Yu earlier told the court she needed to contact Low, better known as Jho Low, whenever the account mandate holder, SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, failed to respond to phone messages.

A mandate holder is empowered to confirm written instructions but is not authorised to sign cheques or make withdrawals, the Kuala Lumpur High Court heard today.

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

“I did not have access to Najib’s accounts directly. I had instructions that I was to check with Nik Faisal, so I just followed the mandate letter,” she said.

“We don’t actually handle current accounts and if there is an overdrawn situation, we do not get involved.

“However, given that we were designated handle the liaison of Najib’s current accounts, the bank brought the matter to our attention.”

When asked by Sithambaram to cite an example of an overdrawn account, Yu referred to her BlackBerry Messenger communications with Low on August 9, 2014, when she received an urgent message seeking verification that there was enough for a RM3.3 million jewellery purchase.

Najib’s credit card incurred 10 charges amounting to €750,000 (RM3.3 million) on August 8, 2014 at an Italian branch of Swiss-owned jewellery firm De Grisogono, the court heard last week.

Yu said she received a message from Low, stating: “From PM, great holiday here. Need you to speak to Cheah to clear a you know what purchase. Can you do it immediately.”

She verified that there were 24 transactions for the purchase of jewellery, amounting to RM3.3 million.

There were also 16 transactions, amounting to RM2.46 million, that were rejected as the sum exceeded the credit card’s spending limit of RM3 million.

On August 13, 2014, RM3,282,734.16 in credit card debt was settled with a payment from an AmBank account ending with “880”, which was confirmed to belong to the former prime minister earlier in the trial.

Yu said she was never contacted by Najib or Nik Faisal regarding irregularities with the bank accounts.

“In fact, he (Nik Faisal) seemed to acknowledge that the accounts were overdrawn.”

Sithambaram: Were you ever questioned by Najib, who expressed shock that millions were used from his accounts before he closed the accounts (in 2015)?

Yu: I wasn’t aware of any such incident… of any shock before he closed the accounts.

Sithambaram: These cheques that were issued, were they for large sums of money or small sums?

Yu: Usually, they were quite large, in the millions.

She said her BlackBerry was issued by the bank, and was used only to prompt clients on matters relating to their accounts.

It was never used as a form of written instruction, she said.

“As the current accounts of Najib were constantly overdrawn, and AmBank often had to wait for adequate funds to be deposited in order to clear cheques issues by Najib, together with the fact that (former Ambank group managing director) Cheah Tek Kuang had retired… the senior management of AmBank, at the end of 2014, proposed and discussed the closure of Najib’s current accounts.”

Najib’s current accounts were closed on March 9, 2015. The credit cards were cancelled on March 11 the same year, following the payment of outstanding balance a day earlier.

Yu said between 2011 and 2015, Najib’s current accounts saw a high volume of transactions, including inward fund transfers from overseas in foreign currencies.

“For the purposes of reporting the overseas inward fund transfers to Bank Negara Malaysia, I enquired of Nik Faisal about the purpose of the said funds, and was informed that they were ‘gifts’.”

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. – July 22, 2019.