YR1M’s ex-CEO worked for Jho Low and Najib’s brother Nazir.
9am: Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak takes a seat in the public gallery.
Also awaiting proceedings are Attorney-General Tommy Thomas and his team of deputy public prosecutors, as well as members of Najib’s defence.
9.07am: Najib enters the dock as proceedings begin.
9.10am: Ung Su Ling is called to the stand, and testifies that she was appointed as the CEO of Yayasan Rakyat 1Malaysia (YR1M) in January 2013. She held the post until last May.
She tells the court that YR1M was the brainchild of then-premier Najib Abdul Razak, and that it was headed by a board of trustees that comprised four members.
“YR1M was mooted by the prime minister then, which is Najib, who wanted to see more community activities being conducted based on 1Malaysia principles.
“There were four trustees, led by the prime minister and three others. They are (former 1MDB chairperson) Lodin Wok Kamaruddin, Wan Shihab Wan Ismail, who was then a special officer at the Prime Minister’s Office, and Azlin Alias, who was then the chief private secretary to the prime minister.
“(However), after Azlin’s death, there were only three trustees,” she says, reading from her witness statement.
Ung tells the court that the trustees’ main task was to plan YR1M’s direction, besides approving community programmes and budget allocations.
All programmes, she added, were approved through director’s circular resolutions, which she would prepare before taking it to Azlin, who would then obtain Shihab and Najib’s signatures.
The resolutions would then be returned to her before she obtained Lodin’s signature.
9.20am: Ung Su Ling testifies that YR1M largely relied on funds from Genting Group for its community programmes between 2013 and 2015.
Ung adds that YR1M had three AmBank accounts, one of which was used as the main account for project funding.
“The main account was for (YR1M) programmes. The main source of funding came from gambling proceeds from the Genting Group.
“The second account was for YR1M operations, while the third was for funding of projects that were based on other funding sources,” she says.
Between 2013 and 2015, Ung tells the court, YR1M received a total of RM210 million in funds from 1MDB.
9.30am: The RM42 million banked into two of Najib Abdul Razak’s AmBank accounts did not come from YR1M, testifies Ung.
Ung says she was only told by the late Azlin to order 1MDB’s CSR partner Ihsan Perdana to transfer the funds to the said AmBank accounts.
This was done on two occasions – in December 2014 and February 2015.
Ung says she was contacted by Azlin on Dec 24, 2014, and told to instruct the then-Ihsan Perdana CEO Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman to transfer sums of RM27 million and RM5 million to the AmBank accounts ending in ‘880’ and ‘906’.
In February the next year, Azlin instructed her to order Shamsul to transfer another RM10 million to the ‘880’ account.
Ung says that at the time, she did not know that the accounts belonged to Najib.
9.40am: Ung says she got to know Joanna Yu because YR1M accounts were maintained with AmBank and Yu was also the relationship manager for the account.
The relationship started in 2013.
9.46am: Ung is now going through BlackBerry messenger communications she had with Yu about these transfers.
9.57am: Ung is asked if she had known if Yu was the relationship manager for Najib’s accounts.
She says she knew that Yu was the relationship manager for the accounts but didn’t know they belonged to Najib.
10.04am: The cross-examination begins. Lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah is asking Ung how the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had taken her statement for the case.
10.16am: She is asked about her working experience. Ung says she was the personal assistant to CIMB Group CEO Nazir Razak. Nazir is Najib’s brother.
She worked in Nazir’s office between 2006 and 2009.
“Yes, I was in the group CEO office. I was a senior manager, but the personal assistant to group CEO at that time (Nazir).
“I wrote his speeches,” she tells Shafee during cross-examination.
10.20am: Ung also worked in The Wynton Private Equity Group (M) Sdn Bhd between 2004 and 2006.
Shafee: Wynton Group, is it not connected to Jho Low?
Ung: Yes, he was principal at Wynton.
She also worked at Merican & Partners Asset Management, where she handled investments for Low.
10.26am: Ung says she applied for the YR1M CEO post through Dennis See whom she knew handled 1MDB’s CSR initiatives.
See is Ung’s cousin and she got the job without an interview.
10.33am: Ung says YR1M was set up because Najib felt that there wasn’t enough activity to reflect 1Malaysia’s goals and not enough activity to promote 1Malaysia.
It was involved in grassroots community work to improve the lot of Malaysians.
The 1Malaysia campaign and slogan were Najib’s brainchild.
Ung says she was not aware that 1MDB also had something similar called Yayasan 1MDB, which was also involved in CSR initiatives.
10.39am: YR1M had three pillars, Ung says, including improving the quality of life of the less fortunate, which was mainly the B40.
It provided clean water to communities with no access to clean water, such as Sabah and Sarawak.
YR1M also was involved in micro-hydro projects for small communities. YR1M also provides skills training to micro-entrepreneurs for “mom and pop” enterprises.
It also helped farmers and provided fire-fighting systems for longhouses.
Ung says that the foundation carried out some 1,500 programmes to help Malaysians between 2013 and 2018.
10.42am: Shafee says his cross-examination of Ung is meant to show that his client Najib had bona fide intent.
Shafee says this after deputy public prosecutor V Sithambaram objects to his line of questioning, describing it as irrelevant.
“It is quite obvious I raised this as a basic element, as Najib is facing (charges) and needs to disprove all this…setting up that the funding (transfers of RM42 million to various entities) is all for bona fide reasons,” he says.
However, judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali tells the lawyer to keep his cross-examination brief, saying “some of the details we can do without.”
10.50am: 1MDB, Genting Group and Petronas were among YR1M’s funders, says Ung.
10.51am: 1MDB gave RM210 million; Genting Group (RM230 million) and Petronas (RM3 million).
The board of YR1M never met and it made decisions based on circular resolutions, Ung says.
10.52am: Petronas’ funding was for a special project which Ung does not elaborate.
11am: Court is adjourned for the day. Cross-examination of Ung to continue tomorrow at 9am.
Earlier reports:
July 15, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 37
July 11, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 36
July 10, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 35
July 9, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 34
July 8, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 33
July 3, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 32
July 3, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 31
July 1, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 30
June 20, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 29
June 19, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 28
June 18, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 27
June 17, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 26
June 14, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 25
June 13, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 24
June 12, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 23
June 11, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 22
June 10, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 21
May 28, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 20
May 27, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 19
May 15, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 18
May 14, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 17
May 9, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 16
May 8, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 15
May 7, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 14
May 7, Najib Fails in Second Bid to Remove Sri Ram as 1MDB Lead Prosecutor
May 7, Najib Signed Guarantee Letter for RM2B KWAP Loan to SRC, KWAP Rules Breached
May 6, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 13
May 2, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 12
May 2, RM1M Golden Handshake in Final Month as PM for Najib
Apr 30, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 11
Apr 29, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 10
Apr 29, Court Throws Out Najib’s Application to Strike Out 7 SRC Charges, Trial to Go On
Apr 25, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Nine
Apr 24, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Eight
Apr 24, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Seven
Apr 22, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Six
Apr 18, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Five
Apr 17, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Four
Apr 16, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Three
Apr 15, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day Two
Apr 3, Najib Trial: Day One