LOW Taek Jho told the bank manager that Najib Razak did not want to terminate his three current accounts months before they were closed, the Kuala Lumpur High Court heard today.

Former AmBank relationship manager Joanna Yu testified that due to red flags for money laundering, she had urged Low, better known as Jho Low,  to tell then prime minister Najib to close his three current accounts in December 2014.

During cross-examination, defence counsel Harvinderjit Singh asked Yu whether she had pushed Low to close Najib’s accounts and whether he had responded with these word: “(I have) asked MNR (Mohd Najib Razak), he does not want to close.”

Yu verified the BlackBerry Messenger chat logs dated December 20, 2014, that were read out in court.  

Najib’s three current accounts, ending in the numbers 880, 906, 898, were eventually closed on March 9, 2015. Najib also cancelled his two credit cards the same month.

Meanwhile, the court heard that Low was behind outflows totalling RM32 million from Najib’s bank accounts at the end of 2014.

Low, Yu said, was trying to zeroise transfers from Putra Perdana Construction before the end of the financial year.

He had asked Yu to prepare a letter of instruction to reverse a transfer of RM27 million from Permai Binaraya into Najib’s account ending 880, and RM5 million from Putra Perdana Construction into Najib’s account ending 906.

Low did this after being told that mandate holder SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil could not authorise the transactions.

On December 24, 2014, Yu e-mailed Low a draft for the letter of instruction. She confirmed that Low e-mailed a scanned copy of a letter of instruction with Najib’s signature a minute later.

Yu agreed with Harvinderjit’s suggestion that it was not possible to obtain a signature of Najib’s within that time and that she did not witness the former prime minister sign the letter.

On December 29, RM27 million from account 880 was returned to Permai Binaraya and RM5 million to Putra Perdana Construction.

Harvinderjit suggested that Low was not truthful and was deceitful at times, to which Yu agreed.

Harvinderjit: He never told you the truth about the purpose of the reversals?

Yu: I don’t know the full picture. He just said he needed to reverse. He didn’t tell me why.

Harvinderjit: Of course he was lying to you previously when he said it was a donation. We have covered that.

Harvinderjit was speaking about the RM27 million originating from SRC International, which found its way into Najib’s “880” account, the subject of another three money-laundering charges for which he has yet to stand trial.

Yu had agreed with the defence’s suggestion that Low had convinced her that it was a donation from royalty.

Defence lawyers had previously suggested that bankers worked with Low, possibly with the help of SRC International senior executives, to pilfer from the government-linked entity.

Earlier today, Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali set next Monday to hear an application from the defence to strike out a bid by the prosecution to compel Najib to apologise for Facebook posts that prosecutors said were sub judice.

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 is charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money laundering and one count of abuse of power. The 66-year-old faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted. – August 5, 2019.