THE Kuala Lumpur High Court today heard that a senior banker at AmBank had converted more than £9 million to ringgit in 2014 into Najib Razak’s account without knowing that the account belonged to the then prime minister.

Rosliza Ishak, who was the then senior manager at the FX Sales Department, said she did the conversion after receiving instructions from Joanna Yu Ging Ping, the customer relationship manager at AmBank.

Rosliza, the 25th prosecution witness, said there were six transactions, totalling £9.46 million (RM49.9 million at the material time) from two foreign firms, which she helped convert into a AmPrivate Banking account.

Five of the transactions that entered the AmPrivate Banking account were from Vista Equity International Partners Ltd (Barbados) and the other was from Blackrock Commodities (Global) Ltd. 

Both Vista Equity and Blackrock are shell companies owned and controlled by Eric Tan, a trusted associate of fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.

“After I received instructions from Yu to exchange British pounds to ringgit, for which she had obtained prior consent and confirmation from the customer, my department entered the Murex system, where the system binds the exchange contracts according to the agreed rate. 

“My department then made the necessary conversion based on Yu’s instructions that she received from her client,” Rosliza told the court today.

It was previously established in Najib’s SRC International trial that Yu was handling the former prime minister’ personal bank account, and she was a key witness in the trial.

SRC International is a subsidiary of the state-owned 1MDB. 

Najib had earlier filed a suit against the bank and Yu over the management of his accounts to divert funds from SRC International. 

Cross-examined by defence counsel Wan Azizuddin Wan Mohammed, Rosliza said that she had no knowledge that the accounts handled by Yu belonged to Najib. 

She claimed she only knew the accounts belonged to Najib when the 1MDB investigation started. 

Rosliza, who is currently vice-president at the bank’s Unit Deposit and Pricing Management, said she knew there were customers from the AmPrivate banking division who would prefer if their identities were not disclosed, even to bank officials themselves. 

“Our superiors did not mention that the account belonged to Najib. We were only told the code name and no other information was disclosed,” she said. 

Rosliza said she could not confirm if Yu had personally communicated with Najib and told him about the foreign funds in his account. 

Najib is standing trial for corruption over the misappropriation of RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds. 

He faces 25 charges, four of abuse of power and 21 of money laundering. 

The hearing continues before judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah, with former deputy treasurer-general Siti Zauyah Mohd Desa slated to continue her testimony. – June 14, 2022.