THE Kuala Lumpur High Court last week allowed Najib Razak to call a handwriting expert to verify the authenticity of the former prime minister’s signatures on SRC International-related documents tendered as evidence.

Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali ruled in favour of Najib’s application to call Australian Dr Steven J. Strach, who will examine 13 disputed documents.

Nazlan said the court will decide on the admissibility of Steven’s findings as evidence at the end of the case as it “is still bound to consider evidence no matter how weak”.

Defence lawyers had argued that the authenticity of the documents had yet to be determined.

Prosecutors responded by saying Najib’s application should be struck as his forgery allegation was an “afterthought”.

Najib faces three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money laundering and one count of abuse of power.

His 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 accounts in 2014 and 2015.

The defence’s forgery argument arose from testimonies by witnesses, including former SRC International chairman Ismee Ismail and former director Suboh Md Yassin, who had said it was possible that their signatures were forged.

The court has set February 10 for the examination of the documents. Nazlan has allowed the prosecution to call a rebuttal witness to appear at a later date.

Series of denials

Last week, during cross-examination by ad hoc prosecutor V. Sithambaram, Najib testified that he did not verify with the late King Abdullah Al-Saud whether the Saudi royal family received the US$620 million (RM2.2 billion) he returned several months after the 2013 general election in May.

The amount was alleged to be the remainder of a donation, some of which Najib said he spent on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and political activities. It was remitted from his private AmBank account ending 694 to Tanore Finance Corp, which he believed was controlled by his benefactor.

Najib denied knowing Tanore was controlled by Penang-born businessman Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low.

He said despite approving RM4 billion in loans to SRC International, he never met the board of directors from 2011 until he stepped down as prime minister in 2018.

Najib testified that the cabinet approved of a government guarantee for the second RM2 billion loan from Retirement Fund Inc (KWAP) in 2012 before SRC International applied for it.

He also testified that he spent the RM42 million related to his criminal charges that had entered his accounts between December 2014 and February 2015, but did not know the money was from SRC International.

He said that he had thought the money was part of a CSR fund that was credited into his personal AmBank accounts.

Regarding a RM3.3 million gift given to the the wife of a former Qatari prime minister in 2014, Najib said he had spent his own money as he did not want to burden taxpayers. Najib said he used his own credit card at jeweller De Grisogono in Italy on August 8, 2014.  

Najib denies rewarding ex-AG 

Meanwhile, Najib denied offering former attorney-general Apandi Ali a seat on the Tabung Haji (TH) board in 2016 in exchange for clearing the Pekan MP of criminal wrongdoing related to SRC International.

Apandi was appointed to the TH board on January 26, 2016; that same day, he held a press conference exonerating the former prime minister of fraud related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd and its former subsidiary SRC International.

Najib testified that Apandi did no wrong in clearing him. When prompted by Sithambaram, Najib said he was still “considering” calling Apandi to testify as a defence witness.

Apandi would be the second defence witness to be called after Najib’s cross-examination concludes on February 3.

Apandi was appointed attorney-general on July 27, 2015. The 69-year-old Umno politician resigned from that position as well as from the TH board a month after Pakatan Harapan swept to power on May 9, 2018.

The defence wants Apandi, who currently runs a private practice, to authenticate a 2016 press statement exonerating Najib of wrongdoing in the wake of investigations by multiple enforcement agencies the year before. – January 26, 2020.