CLOSE to US$670 million (RM2.95 billion) was transferred to Najib Razak’s personal bank account in a span of three years from an individual and several companies, a senior bank official told the court in the ongoing 1MDB trial today.

Wedani Senen, AmBank’s Swift unit manager, told the Kuala Lumpur High Court that all the funds, through five different transactions, were transferred to an AmPrivate Banking account with the number ending ‘694’, belonging to the former prime minister.

Wedani, the trial’s 29th prosecution witness, said US$20 million came from an individual known as Prince Faisal Turkey Bandar Al Saud in two different transactions dated February 24, 2011, and June 14, 2011.

She said that two more transactions of close to US$30 million were transferred from Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Limited, a shell company owned and controlled by one Eric Tan.

A total of US$4,999,988 and US$24,999,988 were transferred to Najib’s ‘694’ account on October 30, 2012, and November 19, 2012, respectively.

Both Prince Faisal and Eric Tan were trusted associates of fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.

She also said that US$620 million was transferred by Tanore Finance Corporation to the Pekan MP’s personal account on March 22, 2013.

Wedani said there were 12 transactions involving funds transferred to Najib’s two Amprivate Banking accounts with the number ending ‘694’ and ‘880’.

However, due to time constraints, Wedani was only able to read out the above-mentioned five transactions.

She will continue reading her statement on Monday.

In this trial’s opening statement, lead public prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram said that the former prime minister had employed an ‘elaborate charade’ to divert hundreds of millions of dollars to his personal bank account.

He said that Najib had used his position as chairman of the state-owned 1MDB board of advisers, prime minister, and minister of finance “to exert influence over the board of 1MDB to carry out certain abnormal transactions with undue haste”.

The former Federal Court judge said Najib took steps to evade justice and interfered with the course of the investigation into the case.

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, allegedly committed between 2011 and 2013. – June 16, 2022.