PUTRAJAYA (March 10): Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd (IPSB) managing director Datuk Dr Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman has denied claims by the former general counsel of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, that he was ever in a meeting with fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) and his associates in London, in 2015, to discuss 1MDB’s money, which had been deposited into then-prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s account. 

Shamsul, who was testifying in Najib’s defence at the 1MDB-Tanore trial, here, on Monday, told the court that he categorically denies Loo’s testimony as the prosecution’s star witness, that he was in attendance a meeting at the Mayfair Hotel in London in early 2015 with Jho Low. 

“I categorically deny the claims made in Jasmine Loo's testimony. I was not in London in early 2015, and I have never been to the Business Centre of the Mayfair Hotel during that period, or at all,” Shamsul said in his witness statement on Monday. 

On Feb 14 last year, Loo had testified for the prosecution, and revealed that it was at this meeting in London that she had witnessed Jho Low drafting one of the four “Arab donation” letters from Prince Saud Abdulaziz Al-Saud (also known as Prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Majed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) to Najib, to state that the money that had gone into Najib’s private accounts were donations from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, instead of 1MDB funds. 

Loo said she saw Jho Low and his now-deceased associate Kee Kok Thiam draft the letter in early 2015, after various parties started questioning the source of the billions that had landed in Najib’s private accounts.

Loo said she had gone to London in early 2015, and was summoned by Jho Low to meet him at the Mayfair Hotel there.

Loo testified that she had seen Shamsul and Yayasan Rakyat 1Malaysia (YR1M) project director Dennis See there with Jho Low and Kee.

Loo also further testified that Shamsul had asked Jho Low about how he was going to handle the issue of the money that had been transferred to Najib’s private accounts from the accounts of IPSB and SRC International.

"At that time, Shamsul asked Jho Low what was the solution to the issue of money received in [Najib's] account, which was said to be from Putrajaya Perdana [Bhd] (also an entity under Jho Low-linked UGB Bhd) and SRC. Shamsul said various parties had started asking about [Najib's] account, where the money has been put into, and that it is said to be money from 1MDB.

"After that, Jho Low ordered Kee Kok Thiam to prepare a confirmation letter from Prince Saud to state that the money put into [Najib's] account was a donation from Saudi Arabia. After that, I went out for a while with Jho Low to discuss other matters. But when I re-entered the [venue] I saw Kee Kok Thiam preparing a draft of a donation letter from Prince Saud," Loo had said when reading out her witness statement before judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah.

She had verified that the draft was to be a letter from Prince Saud, dated June 1, 2014, to Najib.

"I confirm that I have seen a draft of this letter on the computer screen at the Business Centre at the Mayfair Hotel, London [the meeting venue] in early 2015. As previously explained, Kee Kok Thiam was preparing this document because he was instructed to do so by Jho Low after a discussion between Jho Low, Shamsul, Dennis See, and Kee Kok Thiam himself, at the Business Centre,” Loo had said.

Testifying before Sequerah on Monday, Shamsul said that he had never participated in any discussions, as claimed by Loo, with regard to funds in Najib’s accounts or the drafting of the fake Arab donation letters. 

“Furthermore, I have never had any meeting with Jasmine Loo, Jho Low, Kee Kok Thiam, or Dennis See, at the Mayfair Hotel in the Business Centre, let alone participated in any discussion regarding the alleged funds in Datuk Seri Najib Razak's account, or the preparation of a donation confirmation letter or donation letter from Prince Saud,” he said. 

“I was never involved in any such conversation in relation to drafting or procuring letters concerning donations from Saudi Arabia. Jasmine Loo's assertion that I was present and engaged in such discussions is entirely false and a fabrication of testimony, perhaps to meet a mischievous agenda,” Shamsul said, adding that he had never met Kee and doesn’t know him. 

When asked by Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah about whether the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has since contacted him to obtain a statement about the meeting from Loo’s testimony, Shamsul said that the MACC did not seek to clarify this with him. 

“No. MACC did not even bother to contact me. My address and contacts [details] have remained the same all these years, and MACC knows exactly how to reach me,” he said. 

Shamsul however did say that in July, 2015, when news of 1MDB subsidiary SRC International’s RM42 million ending up in Najib’s account had broken, he was in London when Dennis See had contacted him to meet Jho Low at the Mayfair Hotel. 

However, Shamsul said that Jho Low had not shown up to meet them in London, adding that the meeting would have been the first time he met Jho Low. 

During the SRC criminal trial involving Najib, Shamsul had testified that he, via IPSB, had transferred the RM42 million to an AmBank account, which he later got to know belonged to Najib, and was the subject of the former PM’s money-laundering case, where Najib was found guilty and has been serving his jail sentence since Aug 23, 2022.

Shamsul said that he was merely following instructions from See at the time, as it was standard practice for him to follow See’s instructions on money remittances. 

Before going to London in July 2015, Shamsul said that he was in Brussels, Belgium, when he received a call from Najib to ask him if it were true that he had banked in the RM42 million to Najib’s personal accounts. Shamsul told Najib that it was true. 

“From his reaction over the phone, it appeared to me that Datuk Seri Najib [Razak] was taken aback, as I distinctly heard him mutter under his breath, ‘My God’,” Shamsul said. 

Shamsul continues his testimony on the stand before Sequerah on Tuesday. 

In this trial, Najib faces four counts of abuse of power for using his position as then prime minister, finance minister and chairman of 1MDB’s board of advisers to receive gratifications worth RM2.27 billion. He also faces 21 money laundering charges.

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Jasmine Loo says she witnessed Jho Low order his associate to draft 'Arab donation' letter to Najib