Najib promised additional US$1.17 billion cash gift by Saudi prince, court told

The Kuala Lumpur High Court was today told that Najib Razak was promised an additional US$1.17 billion in cash as a gift from an individual alleged to be a member of the Saudi royal family in appreciation of the former prime minister's work in introducing Islam to the rest of the world.

Based on two letters read in court by Najib’s counsel Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed, the cash gift was promised to be remitted into Najib’s personal bank account by a Saudi prince, Saud Abdulaziz Majid Al Saud, via two transactions of US$375 million on Nov 1, 2011 and US$800 million on March 1, 2013.

Last week, Najib’s defence team presented another purported letter from the same Saudi prince dated Feb 1, 2011, that allegedly promised a US$100 million cash gift to Najib in recognition of his contributions to the Islamic world.

Bearing the letterhead of the Private Office of Saud Abdulaziz Majid Al Saud, who was the former governor of Madinah province and a member of the House of Saud, the letters stated that the gift was in view of the friendship that the two had developed over the years as well as to recognise Najib’s new ideas as a modern Islamic leader.

Wan Aizuddin was referring the letters to the 38th prosecution witness, AmBank Private Banking Capital Market desk head Yap Wai Keat, 57, during cross-examination at Najib’s trial involving the misappropriation of RM2.3 billion from 1MDB.

"The letters also mentioned that the cash gift would be remitted to Najib’s account via the prince’s personal bank account or through His Highness’ instructed companies bank accounts, Tanore Finance Corporation and Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Limited.

"It was also alluded in the letters that Najib should have absolute discretion to determine how the money would be utilised and that it should not, in any event, be construed as an act of corruption since this is against the practice of Islam and the prince personally does not encourage such practices (corruption) in any manner," the lawyer said.

It was previously reported that the US Department of Justice had identified Tanore Finance Corporation and Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Limited as being controlled by fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, using the identity of his associate Eric Tan Kim Loong. 

Wan Aizuddin then asked the witness whether he had any knowledge of the two letters prior to the 1MDB trial, to which he answered in the positive.

"I think possibly because, in order to proceed with the remittance, we would need to know the purpose code of this money, whereby Najib’s AmBank account relationship manager Joanna Yu had told me that it was a gift and that there were letters that came with it. 
 
"However, I cannot confirm whether there was a possibility that Yu gave me the letters at the point of time of these transactions.

"She might have shown them to me, but I cannot recall due to the number of documents that I have gone through over the past years," said Yap, who handled AmBank’s foreign exchange deposits from 2010 until 2014.

Najib, 69, faces four charges of using his position to obtain bribes totalling RM2.3 billion from 1MDB funds and 21 charges of money laundering involving the same amount.

The trial before judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah continues this afternoon.