Najib never questioned to and fro of funds from his accounts, court told

The Federal Court was today told that Najib Razak had never made any enquiries with AmBank about the huge funds that were constantly credited and debited to his personal bank accounts until the accounts were closed in 2015.

Ad hoc prosecutor V Sithambaram submitted that the former prime minister had taken no legal action against the bank over the allegedly wrongful credit and debit of funds from his accounts. 

"The evidence of two bankers from AmBank, namely Uma Devi Raghavan and Joanna Yu Ging Ping, shows that Najib never made any enquiries with AmBank, let alone lodged any complaints regarding the huge amounts of funds constantly entering and leaving his accounts. 

"In fact, the appellant (Najib) had no problem with his bank balances until he closed his accounts in March 2015," he said at the hearing of Najib’s appeal against his conviction and sentence for misappropriating RM42 million in SRC International funds.

He said this in his submissions before a five-member bench led by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat. 

The other judges on the bench were Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Federal Court judges Nallini Pathmanathan, Mary Lim Thiam Suan and Mohamad Zabidin Mohd. 

Sithambaram said Najib had also tasked fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho or Jho Low, former SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil and his then private secretary, the late Azlin Alias, with ensuring that there were always sufficient funds in his accounts.

He submitted that the transfer of funds in the accounts was made at the behest of the appellant by the trio and that the appellant had benefited solely from the RM42 million credited to his accounts.

"The only issue is whether the appellant had knowledge of the RM42 million in his accounts when it was received. In any event, wilful blindness is not a defence. Wilful blindness is treated as the legal equivalent of actual," he said.

Sithambaram said that based on the entirety of the evidence, the Pekan MP willingly spent the funds for his own benefit and certainly had knowledge of the RM42 million in his accounts.
 
He said it was futile for Najib to want the court to believe that he did not know about the RM42 million credited into his accounts.

However, he said, between June 2014 and February 2015, Najib was aware that he had only RM49 million from the alleged fourth Arab donation.

"That, too, he used up, except for about RM6 million made up of a cash deposit of RM5 million (not an Arab donation) before the arrival of the RM42 million. Therefore, the RM42 million arriving in his accounts would constitute a 100% increase in funds.

"Yet, the appellant wears blinkers and says that he has no knowledge of this RM42 million. No one can spend more money than he had and claim that he had no knowledge of the funds he spent. Even the so-called exhausted Arab donation does not help the appellant’s narrative," he said.

The hearing continues at 3pm.