Court told that Jho Low said Najib refused to close his AmBank accounts.
2.19pm: Dressed in a dark grey suit, the accused Najib Abdul Razak is in the public gallery. Also seen in court are Attorney-General Tommy Thomas and his team of deputy public prosecutors, as well as lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, and members of the defence.
The 54th witness, former AmBank customer relationship manager Joanna Yu, is seen in the witness stand.
2.23pm: Proceedings begin.
2.24pm: Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali sets Aug 9 to hear an application to strike out the bid to have Najib Abdul Razak apologise for two Facebook posts.
Nazlan fixes the date as next Monday is Hari Raya Aidiladha, a public holiday.
Both Thomas and Shafee raise no objection to the hearing date.
The prosecution’s application is in relation to two of Najib’s Facebook posts deemed sub judice to the ongoing trial.
2.26pm: Harvinderjit continues his cross-examination of Yu.
She tells the court that in 2011-2015 there were a few branch managers in AmBank. She can’t recall who they all were exactly.
Harvinderjit asks her if she knows that these people were also asked to leave the bank. She said she was not sure.
To recap, Harvinderjit goes through money transactions of RM170 million transferred out of SRC: RM140 million was sent to Putra Perdana’s Account from that, RM27 million was banked into Najib’s ‘880’ account.
The RM27 million transaction was reversed and deposited back into Putra Perdana’s accounts.
2.55pm: Jho Low told witness Yu in December 2014 that Najib did not want to close his accounts with AmBank.
Yu confirms that the conversation with Low took place via a BlackBerry Messenger chat on Dec 20 that year.
She says that Low instructed her to prepare an instruction letter for AmBank the following day to reverse RM27 million and RM5 million credited into Najib’s ‘880’ and ‘906’ accounts.
Low also told her to prepare the draft of the letter so that former SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil could sign and send it to the bank.
3.15pm: The court hears that Jho Low had difficulty reversing a total of RM32 million in transfers credited into Najib’s bank accounts in 2014.
Yu reveals that the problem stemmed from the insufficiency of Faisal’s mandate to issue such instructions to AmBank.
Although Nik Faisal was mandated to operate Najib’s three AmBank accounts, he was only authorised to instruct transfers between said accounts, but not to transfer any funds out.
Because of this limitation, Low ordered Yu to prepare a letter of instruction for Najib to sign.
Yu says that Low wanted the remittance to take effect before the end of 2014. As such, he said the copy of the instruction letter signed by Najib would first be sent to AmBank, followed by the original.
3.35pm: Based on a series of chats between Yu and Low on Dec 24, 2014, Harvinderjit tries to establish that Low returned a scanned copy of the letter with Najib’s signature just a minute after Yu emailed him the draft.
Although Yu cannot confirm this, she agrees that it is impossible for someone to get this done in a minute.
She later agrees that she cannot confirm if the letter was really signed by Najib.
“I didn’t see him sign (the letter),” she says.
4.32pm: Harvinderjit suggests that Low deceived Yu about the transaction of the funds. She says he didn’t tell her why he needed the reversals to be carried out.
5.08pm: Harvinderjit informs the court he has another one hour’s worth of cross-examination to conduct on Yu.
He tells judge Nazlan, seeking proceedings be adjourned to tomorrow.
Harvinderjit: I’ve got another hour to go, seek an adjournment to tomorrow?
Nazlan: One hour?
Harvinderjit: Yes.
Nazlan: 9am (tomorrow).
Proceedings then are adjourned to tomorrow at 9am.
Earlier reports:
Aug 1, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 47
July 31, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 46
July 29, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 45
July 25, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 44
July 24, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 43 Vacated
July 23, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 42
July 22, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 41
July 18, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 40
July 17, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 39
July 16, Najib’s SRC Trial: Day 38
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