Kuala Lumpur: An analyst from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) testifying in Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial told the High Court he could not confirm whether a sum of US$20 million that went into the former prime minister’s bank account originated from 1MDB.
Adam Ariff Roslan said investigating officers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) could not furnish him with the details of an account held with Riyad Bank said to belong to “Prince Faisal Turki Al Saud” at the time of his analysis.
He said he conducted his analysis based on bank statements for the accounts of Najib and Good Star Limited, a company controlled by fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low.
Adam said that from his analysis, Good Star had on Feb 18, 2011 remitted the sum of US$12.5 million (RM58.6 million) to an account attributed to “Prince Faisal”.
Five days later, a sum of US$10 million was transferred to Najib’s AmBank current account ending with the digits “694” from the same account attributed to “Prince Faisal”, he said.
On June 10 the same year, he said, Good Star made a second payment of US$12 million to the alleged account “Prince Faisal”. Three days later, Najib received US$10 million, purportedly from “Prince Faisal”.
Under cross-examination by lawyer Shafee Abdullah, Adam said he did not know of any dealings “Prince Faisal” had with Najib relating to the US$20 million transfer.
Shafee: So you made a “guess” (that the payments were linked to Good Star and 1MDB) because of the proximity of time?
Adam: I won’t call it a guess.
The analyst also admitted that he had no knowledge of whether the funds were a donation from the late Saudi Arabia ruler King Abdullah to Najib, as claimed by the defence.
He said his job was only to analyse the movement of money in accounts linked to 1MDB.
Shafee: You won’t know if the US$20 million came from another source (other than Good Star)?
Adam: I can’t confirm without the Riyad Bank statement.
Najib is standing trial on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited in his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
The hearing before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah continues.
