Kuala Lumpur: A businessman told the High Court hearing Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial his company received more than RM22 million from the former prime minister between 2011 and 2014 for speech writing and public relations services.
Omar Mustapha, the owner of Semarak Konsortium Satu Sdn Bhd, an investment holding company, said the company wrote speeches in English for Najib and handled his public relations with the international media.
He said his company had been engaged following a public uproar in 2010 over revelations that the government had incurred RM76.8 million in fees paid to APCO Worldwide, an international public relations firm engaged to handle media-related matters.
“I never asked the prime minister for a (written) contract. This engagement only involved a verbal agreement as there was a possibility this issue might be politicised like APCO.
“Besides that, the foreign experts I engaged were more comfortable providing their services on a freelance basis,” he said.
Omar said he met Najib in the prime minister’s office once a month over the three-year period to collect his fees.
“I collected signed cheques (from him). I did not get bags of cash from the (then) prime minister.
“I cashed the cheques for three years into my company’s account without exception, and without being questioned by the bank, or any red flags,” he said.
Omar said he did not know the source of the money used by Najib to pay his company.
“The cheques bore no name (of the account holder). I cannot infer who the owner was, I can only attest that he (Najib) was the signatory,” he said.
Under cross-examination, Omar said his company had other sources of income.
He also admitted paying money to the late lawyer Gopal Sri Ram. He said Sri Ram was engaged to represent the company in a commercial dispute some time in 2015, and the payment was for legal fees incurred in that case.
Sri Ram, who acted as ad hoc prosecutor in Najib’s 1MDB case, died in January this year.
Najib is standing trial on 25 counts of money laundering and abuse of power over the alleged misuse of 1MDB funds totalling RM2.28 billion deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
Deputy public prosecutors Najwa Bistamam and Ahmad Akram Gharib represented the prosecution.
The hearing before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah continues.
