KUALA LUMPUR (OCT 30): The origin of the letters that Datuk Seri Najib Razak claimed were proof that the monies that made their way into his private accounts were donations from Arab royalties is 'questionable', says the trial judge who on Wednesday ordered that Najib enter his defence in the 1MDB-Tanore case.
Judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah said this is based on the testimony of Jasmine Loo, the former counsel of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), who told the court how she had heard Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, instruct his associate in London in early 2015 to prepare a letter from Prince Saud to confirm that the monies were a donation from Saudi Arabia, and how she had seen the associate — the now-deceased Kee Kok Thiam — preparing that letter.
This, he noted, happened after various parties started questioning the source of the billions that had landed in Najib’s private accounts.
"This piece of evidence supports the case for the prosecution that the funds received by the accused were not in fact donations from the Arabs, but as a result of the actions and vested interests of the accused as stated in the charges proffered.
"This further raises the reasonable inference that the other letters in respect of the Arab donations were of questionable origin," Sequerah said in his brief grounds for his decision on Wednesday.
Throughout the 1MDB-Tanore case, in which Najib is facing four abuse of power and 21 money-laundering charges for allegedly receiving gratifications worth over RM2 billion, the prosecution had tried to prove that Najib covered his tracks on the 1MDB funds, when news of the scandal broke in July 2015, by producing fake letters and cheques that were never meant to be cashed out, to show that at least RM2.03 billion came as a donation from an Arab prince.
Najib has maintained that the monies that ended up in his personal accounts were donations from the former governor of the Madinah Province, Saud Abdulaziz Majid Al Saud.
The four letters, which were previously produced in court, stated that the money was given to Najib with no strings attached in recognition of the former prime minister’s contribution to the Islamic world, and that there was no expectation for the money to be returned.
Najib received US$681 million, or over RM2 billion, over a period of four years from 2011 to 2014. He has maintained that he had “returned” US$620 million to the donor through Tanore Finance Corp (Tanore), a company owned by another Jho Low associate, Eric Tan Kim Loong, who remains at large.
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