FORMER prime minister Najib Razak’s lead defence counsel, Mohammad Shafee Abdullah, has questioned a prosecution witness’s consistency regarding his client, Kuala Lumpur High Court heard today.

Shafee told the court that Najib’s former special officer, Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin, has been making inconsistent statements on how often he would check with the former prime minister on the authenticity of instructions from financier Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, regarding 1MDB.

In his statement, Ahmari had said he only occasionally checked with Najib regarding Low’s instructions.

However, during cross-examination today, the 43-year-old said he checked with Najib most of the time.

Shafee: I am putting it to you that you are inconsistent and you don’t even realise you are inconsistent because you are not telling the truth. You are fabricating things against my client because you want to implicate my client, when you are in fact working hand in glove with Jho Low.

Amhari: I disagree.

Shafee: That is why you were rewarded with US$1 million, among others. You were rewarded for it.

Amhari: I disagree.

Shafee was referring to a US$800,000 (RM3.33 million) sum received in Amhari’s BSI bank account in Singapore and a further US$200,000 transaction to Amhari’s Maybank bank account, which Amhari had claimed was as a loan from Low to help a house purchase.

Amhari said the frequency of the checks he and the late principal private secretary Azlin Alias made were “dependent on the issue”.

“Najib has 9 million things that he has to think about other than 1MDB. It also depends on whether he is overseas,” he said.

“On some matters, a special officer will not disturb Najib. There are times when matters are very important and it needed to be checked every half hour.”

Meanwhile, Shafee suggested that Najib was kept in the dark about Low’s monthly meetings with the two aides at the Prince Hotel, on Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur, starting in 2009.

Shafee: Now, I am putting it to you that Jho Low separated you so that he can mislead both sides. That’s how a typical con man operates. I am putting it to you. Do you realise that now? Isn’t that why all of you never meet at the same time?

Amhari: I disagree.

The witness confirmed that Najib had not directed him or Azlin to meet Low at the Prince Hotel.

Shafee: Aren’t you baffled by this game Jho Low creates that you have to be hush-hush, meet at the hotel, that your car number has to be given in advance, that there have to be bodyguards? That doesn’t strike you as strange?

Amhari denied that the matter was out of the ordinary.

Shafee: Does it not occur to you that with Jho Low, having committed all this misrepresentation, he could very well mislead Najib himself? Now with your hindsight?

At this point, senior deputy public prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram interjected, saying: “That is for Najib to answer.”

Shafee: Isn’t it a possibility that Najib was misled.

Amhari: I don’t know.

Najib is on trial for four counts of abuse of power to enrich himself by RM2.3 billion and 21 counts of laundering the same amount.

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

Sri Ram, a former Federal Court judge, leads the prosecution while High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah presides.

The trial continues tomorrow. – September 10, 2019.