Najib Abdul Razak's administration allegedly redirected government funds, including those meant for the BR1M programme to repay money owed by 1MDB to International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC), confirmed MACC deputy chief commissioner Azam Baki.

He was responding to details from highly-placed sources who claimed the government had in 2017 also allegedly paid IPIC using funds meant for the management of KLIA; proceeds from the selling of a piece of Finance Ministry land to Bank Negara; and funds received from a "foreign entity in China".

In total, the amount which had been allegedly misappropriated to repay the Abu Dhabi wealth fund was RM4.78 billion.

In explaining the six charges against Najib and former Treasury secretary-general Irwan Serigar Abdullah today, a source said the duo had allegedly misappropriated government funds meant for the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) and a gas pipeline project meant "to favour foreign contractors".

"The first and second charge against Najib and Irwan were over misappropriation of a total RM1.855 billion, which were meant for ECRL and a gas pipeline project.

"The money was channelled to foreign contractors which were supposed to undertake the projects, so they could fulfil requirements set by Exim Bank in China before they could secure loans to conduct the projects.

"And in return for the government's consideration to award the projects to these contractors, an entity in China had then paid a sum in yuan totalling RM1.2 billion. This RM1.2 billion was then used to pay IPIC as part of the 1MDB settlement," the source claimed.

Earlier, Najib and Irwan were jointly charged at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court with six counts of criminal breach of trust involving a total amount of RM6.63 billion.

1MDB, the brainchild of Najib, was set up as a sovereign wealth fund but questions arose about its heavy debts and business practices a few years after it was set up in 2009.

The company was said to have borrowed some RM42 billion and eventually failed to service some of its debts. This was followed by an aggressive asset-stripping exercise beginning in 2015 as Putrajaya attempted to stop the haemorrhage.

In 2015, however, 1MDB was struggling to pay back US$975 million (RM3.6 billion, using the exchange rate at the time) in bank loans.

This is when IPIC swooped in to bail 1MDB out with a US$1 billion (RM3.57 billion) loan.

The deal turned sour, however, and in April 2017, 1MDB reached a settlement to repay IPIC the US$1 billion with US$200 million in interest.