AT the High Court in Kuala Lumpur today, a former AmBank relationship manager who handled accounts for jailed former prime minister Najib Razak today admitted in court that she had offered soup to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low.

Najib’s lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah asked Joanna Yu, 51, about her Blackberry Messenger (BBM) messages to Low.

Shafee: You were close with Jho Low?

Yu: Yes, he was my client.

Shafee: He became more than your client – a close friend?

Yu replied: “We won’t call them enemies… We call them friends. We deal with them in a friendly manner.”

Shafee then asked the witness about her visiting Low’s apartment, to which Yu said she had been to his house to ask for payment for loans.

“Loan payments were overdue and when he was asked for payment, he was never in town and never wanted to meet.

“So, I took the opportunity to ask if Low was in town and asked him to pay the amount in default; most of the time, he wouldn’t want to meet because we would ask for repayment,” she said.

Shafee: There was a time, Jho Low was sick and you cooked (soup) for him?

Yu: “I did suggest, if you want, I can make some soup for you (Low), but I didn’t cook. If somebody is sick, we would offer.”

To this, Shafee joked: “No bank has ever offered me that, and I live opposite my bank.”

“Maybe it is my motherly instinct. I had no intention. I would assist anyone,” Yu said.

At this juncture, Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah queried Shafee’s line of questioning.

Shafee said: “Some of this was allowed to happen because there was no objective assessment.”

The lawyer then asked the witness again: “You allowed yourself to be so close to him, that you lost objectivity?”

Yu said that she had not.

Last Thursday, the witness testified that she had a close working relationship and friendship with Low but denied inappropriate behaviour.

Najib, 69, is facing four charges of using his position to get bribes totalling RM2.3 billion from 1MDB funds and 21 charges of money laundering.

The trial continues tomorrow. – Bernama, December 12, 2022.