IT WAS “unethical” for a government auditor to have recorded a high-level interdepartmental meeting on February 24, 2016, which discussed the 1MDB audit report, former chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa told Kuala Lumpur High Court today.

Ali, who had chaired the meeting, said no one present that day was aware that the entire three-hour meeting was being recorded.

He is testifying as the fourth prosecution witness in the trial of former prime minister Najib Razak and ex-1MDB chief executive Arul Kanda Kandasamy, accused of tampering with the 1MDB audit report.

Ali, 64, was cross-examined by lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah about National Audit Department (NAD) director Nor Salwani Muhammad, who recorded the meeting without the knowledge of other people in attendance by placing a device in a colleague’s pencil case.

Shafee: Did anybody from the NAD ask you for permission to tape record this entire meeting?

Ali: No.

Shafee: If somebody were to ask you permission, you would have refused it?

Ali: I don’t know how I would have reacted.

Shafee: That is a good answer because that would be the first time anybody outside of your office recorded a meeting of which you are chairing. But they can make a request? And it is up to you whether you want to allow them or not?

Ali: Yes.

Shafee: Were you surprised that one of the junior officers secretly recorded the meeting?

Ali: I was surprised.

Shafee: Would you consider it unethical for her to have done it without permission?

Ali: No one in that room knew there was a recording. So, it was unethical because no permission was asked. Nobody knew.

Shafee: The idea of the meeting was to be able to speak as freely as possible. Would that be correct?

Ali: Yes.

Najib is accused of using his position to remove parts of the final 1MDB audit report between February 22 and 26, 2016, at the Prime Minister’s Department, before it was tabled to the Public Accounts Committee, to protect himself from criminal action.

Arul Kanda is on trial for abetting the former prime minister.

Nine officials were present at the meeting, including Ali, Arul Kanda, then auditor-general Ambrin Buang, Ali’s senior private secretary Norazman Ayub, Saadatul Nafisah Bashir Ahmad, Attorney-General’s Chambers representative Dzulkifli Ahmad, Treasury representatives Mohamad Isa Hussain and Asri Hamdin, and Najib’s principal private secretary Shukry Mohd Salleh.

Nor Salwani, who was not at the meeting, testified in November that she had surreptitiously placed a recording device in a pencil case belonging to Saadatul Nafisah, the NAD audit director.

The witness said she was not invited to the meeting as she was not considered senior enough.

Nor Salwani, 52, who was later praised by social media users for her role in exposing the plan to alter the 1MDB audit report, testified that was shocked to learn senior officials were working to remove portions of the report.

The two-hour audio recording was played in its entirety by the prosecution several times in court to show how officials sought to remove portions of the report before presenting it to Parliament.

Those present had discussed lodging a police report over conflicting information in 1MDB’s financial statements for the year 2014, before the conversation moved to destroying copies of the original audit report.

Notable during the meeting was the presence of Dzulkifli, who was later appointed chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

At the meeting, Dzulkifli was heard providing feedback to remove portions of the 1MDB audit report before it was presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The court also heard testimony from Ali, who said Najib removed former attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail as he had “lost trust” in him.

Gani served as attorney-general from January 1, 2002, to July 27, 2015. It was Ali who announced that Gani’s tenure was discontinued due to health reasons. – June 16, 2020.