1MDB TRIAL | Najib Abdul Razak testified today that former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi should have been in the dock instead of the former prime minister.

The former finance minister contended that documentary evidence showed that the true masterminds behind embezzlement at 1MDB were Shahrol and other members of its management with fugitive Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) instead of the accused.

Najib pointed out that Shahrol defied the 1MDB board and was in cahoots with management and Low to embezzle US$700 million of funds meant for a joint venture with Petrosaudi International Limited (PSI).

“Is he (Shahrol) not lucky that I am the accused person? Because if I were not the former prime minister of Malaysia and finance minister, I truly believe the stand he would be occupying would not be the witness stand but the dock,” Najib testified in his defence during the RM2.27 billion 1MDB abuse of power and money laundering trial.

In 2009, US$700 million from US$1 billion of 1MDB funds for the joint venture was diverted to offshore entity Good Star Limited, which is linked to Low.

Prosecutors claimed that Low’s actions at 1MDB were under Najib’s blessing.

However, the accused claimed he had no knowledge of wrongdoing at 1MDB, and that the embezzling there was solely masterminded by Low and other members of the fund’s management.

Today, Najib questioned Shahrol's testimony that the ex-CEO regarded directions from Low as akin to those from the former premier, pointing out that the fugitive businessperson has no role in 1MDB.

The accused categorically denied ever instructing Low to provide Shahrol with any mandate to pursue the 1MDB-Petrosaudi International joint venture.

"It is evident that Shahrol's reliance on these purported instructions from Jho Low, without seeking my confirmation, strongly suggests complicity in Jho Low's scheme to misappropriate an additional RM1 billion from 1MDB.

"It is also clear that this was an orchestrated attempt to unfairly implicate me in a plan I had no knowledge of or involvement in," Najib testified.

Answerable case

On Oct 30, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ordered Najib to enter his defence over four abuse of power and 21 money laundering charges involving RM2.27 billion of funds from 1MDB.

Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah ruled that the prosecution succeeded in establishing a prima facie (answerable) case against Najib over the Minister of Finance Incorporated’s (MOF Inc) wholly owned company.

The judge ruled that Najib had to answer the charges due to the strength of the various 50 witness testimonies during the prosecution stage of proceedings that lasted six years since the trial began in 2019. The accused was first charged in 2018.

Najib is serving a six-year jail sentence over a separate abuse of power case involving RM42 million of funds from SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1MDB.

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