A witness in the the criminal trial of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak revealed the latter spent RM606.51 million in three years, way beyond his ministerial pay check.
It was also revealed that the alleged 1MDB mastermind and fugitive businessman Jho Low referred to Najib as ‘Optimus Prime’ a character in the hit cartoon series and movie Transformers.
Former AmBank relationship manager Joanna Yu said Najib spent the RM606.51 million that was deposited in his three bank accounts.
The expenditure spans over a period of three years, said Joanna during re-examination by prosecutor V. Sithambaran on the total money used by the accused between 2013 and 2015.
The witness was queried on the alleged misappropriation of funds from SRC International Sdn Bhd. Yesterday was the 49th day of the trial at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur.
The court also heard that Najib had received a total of RM212,367,697.57 of foreign monies during the same period of time.
Joanna also told the court that it was impossible for former premier to utilise the money in his accounts if he had no knowledge of it having been deposited into the accounts.
The prosecutor asked Joanna whether Najib had ever queried about the source of the money. She replied ‘No’.
She was asked whether it is possible for a person to know if there was RM395 million (in the account), to which Joanna said: “If you wrote a cheque, you would know that there are sufficient funds.”
In response, Sithambaram said, “Unless the money grows on trees, right?”
On the other hand, a former finance minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah described Najib’s influence over SRC International Sdn Bhd as one of autocratic leadership.
Husni was the 56th prosecution witness and he said he merely followed Najib’s orders in relation to SRC.
He says, “Najib asserted that he wanted to empower energy and coal. I said let the coal part be handled by the public sector.
“Then it became clear to me – the autocratic element. Just receive orders. We only take orders. There’s no discussion.”-/TISG