KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 10): Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that he opened local bank accounts with AmBank to receive the purported Middle East donations for the sake of "transparency".
Testifying in his defence in the ongoing 1Malaysia Development Bhd-Tanore (1MDB-Tanore) trial, the imprisoned former prime minister said that if his motivation surrounding 1MDB was indeed corrupt, he could have simply opened offshore bank accounts.
"If I had any corrupt motivation to pillage 1MDB’s money, I could have easily opened up offshore accounts like (former company general counsel) Jasmine Loo or (Najib's former special officer Datuk) Amhari (Efendi Nazaruddin), which I never did," the former finance minister said in reference to the two prosecution witnesses.
Najib added that he would not have spent the monies in his local accounts for corporate social responsibility (CSR) purposes, or would not have "returned" the unused monies, if he was corrupt.
According to evidence tendered in this trial, Najib received US$680 million from Tanore Finance Corp and returned US$620 million to the company.
"I would not have spent it on political and charitable causes and deprive myself of any benefits from the money. And I would most certainly not have returned 91% of the money received from Tanore back to Tanore," he testified on Tuesday.
Going back to the Saudi donation letters, Najib testified that Tanore was listed as one of the companies which would be remitting part of the donations promised to him by the then King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
However, in actual fact, Tanore was an outfit linked to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) and registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
Najib testified that it was not unusual for the Middle East royals to transfer monies from entities outside of their residential country.
"I was informed through the Saudi letter itself that the donation [would] be remitted through Tanore Finance Corp, a Saudi-linked entity. More importantly, it would be naive to hold the view that the Arab conglomerates would confine their investments only to the Middle East.
"In fact, the Gulf countries have been heavily investing in the UK in the hundreds of millions of dollars, ranging from properties, media companies, and even in banking institutions," he said.
Najib said that he was not aware that Tanore was an entity registered in BVI, and said that there were safeguards in place at Bank Negara Malaysia to raise any matters that were amiss, precisely for reasons such as this.
"But again, this is where the system in place at the [central bank] was meant to alert me of any suspicious facts, which they either did not or could not detect.
"This was one of my intentions in setting up a local bank account under my personal name to receive the donation in Malaysia, where I would probably be ranked the highest in the list of politically exposed persons in Malaysia.
"It was for transparency. This was also the reason my political spending of the donation was transacted almost entirely through cheques," he testified.
Doubling down on his argument that there were no suspicions raised over the alleged "donations", Najib said that the late King Abdullah was widely known for his philanthropy and gift-giving.
"Even the common Arab men are known for their charitable nature, what more the King himself," he said.
Najib went on to cite how former King of Spain Juan Carlos had also received US$100 million from King Abdullah in 2008, which Najib said was also transferred through the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance.
While the prosecution claims that the monies were misappropriated from 1MDB, Najib claims that these were expenditures from the Middle East donations. The defence has also argued that the funds were not used for Najib's personal benefit but rather channelled to CSR projects for the public's benefit.
Despite repetition that the funds were donations, Najib has yet to support his claim by tendering any other documentary evidence to the court, besides the four "Arab donation letters". The letters were allegedly from a former governor of the Madinah province, Saud Abdulaziz Majid Al Saud, dated between 2011 and 2014.
The court, in its decision for the ex-PM to enter his defence, has already ruled that the origins of the letters were dubious.
In this trial, Najib faces four abuse of power and 21 money-laundering charges.
The trial before presiding judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah continues.