THE investigation papers made available in the SRC International case made the case the easiest to prosecute and prove the guilt of former prime minister Najib Razak, Tommy Thomas said.  

Speaking to Malaysiakini in an exclusive interview, the former attorney-general also said that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was then already working on the SRC International case and making headway, leading the Attorney-General Chambers (AGC) to pursue the case. 

“Imagine the DPPs (deputy public prosecutors) and myself as lawyers looking at documents given by somebody else. In this case, it was the MACC investigations, as opposed to other agencies.  

“And MACC said that the file they were working on in the past was SRC (International). They confirmed the rumours circulating in KL—which was around the time one of my predecessors, Abdul Gani Patail, who was sacked in July 2016—that MACC was quite advanced in investigating SRC, so it was just carrying on that work. 

“That was the principal factor - the file came to me. As it turned out, fortuitously, SRC was the easiest to prove, because if you stripped it of everything, it was just a theft of RM42 million. So, it was easy to prove,” he was quoted saying.  

Two weeks ago, Najib was sent to Kajang Prison after the Federal Court quashed his appeal and upheld his sentence in the SRC International case.  

In a unanimous decision, the apex court ordered the Pekan MP to start his 12-year jail sentence immediately.    

Najib would also have to pay a RM210 million fine, in default of which he would have to serve another five years in prison.  

The former AG said that there were just too many contemporaneous documents in all of Najib’s cases as well as his wife Rosmah Mansor’s case and cases linked to other politicians.  

Among them, Thomas explained how the “crooks” in SRC International managed to get a RM4 billion loan from Retirement Fund (Incorporated) (KWAP).  

“Let’s take the KWAP (civil services pension fund Kumpulan Wang Persaraan) money. As you recall, SRC was a company with a paid-up capital of RM2. The crooks needed to borrow, and so KWAP, the pension fund, was targeted to lend RM4 billion,” he said.  

“And KWAP quite rightly said on a credit risk basis, we cannot lend even RM10 to this company as it had no paid-up capital and no track record.  

“That was when KWAP was convinced (to lend) with the government guarantee, and once the government guarantee for RM4 billion came, it became risk-free. This is what happened: the RM4 billion was loaned by KWAP against the government guarantee. 

“Contemporaneous documents mean cabinet minutes, letters passing between SRC and KWAP, and KWAP minutes, resolutions by SRC (as SRC is a company) and bank payment slips.  

“All these things would be prepared by the bankers and officers working in government and the company doing their duties in the ordinary course of their business,” he added.  

When asked if all the documents were made to back the deal, Thomas answered ‘Yes’.  

“Courts always place weight on contemporaneous documents as the court assumes that, when people are preparing them, they are, at that stage, truthful.  

“They may have dishonest intentions later, but it is usually safe to assume that when one creates a contemporaneous document, it is truthful and can be relied on. It is difficult to oppose contemporaneous documents if one signed them,” he said.  

It was asserted during the SRC appeal at the Federal Court that a single-letter from Najib, who was also the then Finance Minister, was all that it took for the approval of the RM4 billion loan given in two tranches. 

Appointing external prosecutors 

Thomas also said he wanted to get the best and brightest to prosecute Najib.  

He said that among the first things he did was to form two 1MDB teams and divide them into criminal and civil. 

He said—since there were enormous documents involved in the cases linked to the former prime minister—they needed experts who could understand and interpret them.  

“The first two or three appearances in court were exclusively with deputy prosecutors. 

“And then it became clear that this case had a lot of documents. The documentation was voluminous, which is good as it helps to prove the case, but you needed to have lawyers who could master these documents. And it is not just reading them and trying to understand.  

“You need to get the context and have experience in handling corporate, commercial and financing fraud. Lawyers who have experience in dealing with such cases would understand the problem much better,” he said.  

Thomas said that it was then that they made the announcement on the appointment of Sulaiman Abdullah and Gopal Sri Ram. 

Sulaiman was tasked to cover the SRC International case, while Sri Ram was tasked for 1MDB and other matters. Sulaiman was then replaced by V Sithambaram after the former withdrew on health grounds. 

“I was determined to get the best and the brightest. To me, it did not matter where the lawyer hailed from.  

“The public and private divide didn’t make sense. I was there on behalf of the people of Malaysia, and Malaysia deserved the best lawyers,” he said.  

Thomas also stressed that SRC was technically not part of 1MDB.  

“It is separate. But for easy reference, everybody has put it as part of the 1MDB fraud, but strictly speaking, it was not part of 1MDB,” he said.  

After Pakatan Harapan came to power in May 2018, a number of corruption charges against politicians and others were initiated.  

Besides Najib, they included Najib’s wife Rosmah, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Umno secretary-general Ahmad Maslan, former Tabung Haji chairman Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, former Federal Territory minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and former Felcra chairman and current Sabah deputy chief minister Bung Moktar Radin. – September 5, 2022.