NAJIB Razak did not have any intention to cause wrongful losses to anyone or cause any gains to himself as he was under the belief that the funds in his personal account were donations from the Arab royalty, his defence team told the Court of Appeal today.

Defence counsel Harvinderjit Singh said there was no element of dishonesty by the former prime minister.

He added that Najib was not aware that SRC International Sdn Bhd funds had been transacted into his account in December 2014 and February 2015.

Najib is appealing against his conviction and jail sentence for misappropriation of RM42 million of SRC International funds.

Harvinderjit Singh reiterated today, as said during the SRC trial in June last year, that it did not matter whether the Arab donations were proven real or otherwise, as the crux of the case was whether Najib believed that they were and acted in good faith.

The lawyer also said in their defence today that If there were any issues, Bank Negara Malaysia would have picked it up.

“The Arab donation letters corresponding with 2011 and 2013 respectively were produced and marked through Cheah Tek Kuang, AmBank former managing director, who confirmed that he had received the supporting documents for remittances in Najib’s earlier 694 account from 2011 to 2013,” Harvinderjit submitted.

“Cheah also confirmed that at the time the 694 account was opened, Najib had informed him that the purpose of the account was to receive donations from Saudi Arabia that Najib was anticipating.

“Joanna Yu Ging Ping, AmBank relationship manager, and Cheah confirmed that the opening of the account, the remittances from 2011 to 2013 and the supporting letters were reported to Bank Negara Malaysia and its then governor directly. No issues were raised by any party.”

On July 28 last year, High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali sentenced Najib to 12 years’ jail and fined him RM210 million after finding him guilty on seven charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT), money-laundering and abuse of position involving those funds.

Judge Nazlan, in his ground of judgment, found that Najib’s reliance on the Arab donations as a defence was untenable.

Nazlan established his conclusion based on that evidence that the alleged donation had been fully utilised several months before the deposits of the RM42 million beginning late December 2014.

Najib had acknowledged in his testimony in December that the money was spent on political activities and corporate social responsibility programmes.

Najib previously testified during the trial that a total of US$1.05 billion (RM3.2 billion then) from Saudi royalty was deposited into his personal AmBank account via Tanore Finance Corp.

Today is the beginning of the second week of Najib’s appeal petition. He has submitted 307 grounds on why he should be cleared off the charges. He is currently out on bail of RM2 million in two sureties pending appeal.

The case continues before judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, who is leading a three-man bench including Has Zanah Mehat and Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera. – April 12, 2021.