Kuala Lumpur: The investigating officer in Najib Razak’s 1MDB case told the High Court today that the former prime minister had not allowed the company’s CEO at the time to access funds raised to develop the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX).
Nur Aida Arifin, from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), said that a sum of US$3 billion had been raised for the project by Goldman Sachs through a bond issue.
The funds were raised after 1MDB entered into a joint venture with Aabar Investment PJS in 2012 to develop TRX, she said.
Aida said her investigations revealed that Najib told Hazem Abdul Rahman not to “touch” the US$3 billion.
“Although the funds were meant for TRX, Najib allowed the funds to be invested in an investment fund under BSI Bank,” she added.
Aida also told the court that as CEO, Hazem did not have any control over the funds.
“Hazem made repeated requests through Azlin Alias (and) Che Lodin Wok Kamaruddin to the prime minister (Najib) to bring back these funds for 1MDB’s daily operations.
“Jho Low (Low Taek Jho) said (to Hazem) that these funds could not be repatriated because they were meant as Umno’s election funds,” she added.
Hazem previously testified that Low told him 1MDB was set up to assist Umno in securing political funds.
He said he resigned in 2015 because he felt he had no control over the company’s financial matters.
The hearing continues before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
Najib was slapped with 25 charges for abuse of power and money laundering over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
