'Speak the truth', Najib quotes Quran to ex-1MDB director

1MDB TRIAL | Najib Abdul Razak quoted a Quranic verse to former 1MDB director Ismee Ismail, whom the former premier claimed testified falsehood, for him to tell the truth.

This afternoon, Najib testified that he never expected such distortion of truth from Ismee, whom the former finance minister had always regarded as a man of integrity and committed to upholding Islamic principles.

"To now hear such a misrepresentation of the facts from him is both disheartening and profoundly disappointing, and it is not what I would expect from someone I held in such high regard.

"However, it is not for me to speculate why he has chosen to do so, but as Muslims, we are reminded in the Quran to ‘speak the truth even if it is against yourselves’ (Surah An-Nisa 4:135).

"The responsibility to uphold truth and fairness is paramount. That said, in fairness to Ismee, he is not the only prosecution witness who has chosen to misrepresent and distort the truth to unfairly implicate me," Najib testified during today's RM2.27 billion 1MDB abuse of power and money laundering trial.

Ismee was one of the key prosecution witnesses.

Refuting testimony

Najib was refuting Ismee's testimony that he exerted influence on the 1MDB board to dispose of US$1 billion worth of shares - meant for a joint venture with Petrosaudi International Limited - for a total consideration of US$1.2 billion.

The accused contended that his executions of proposals brought to him were based purely on his belief that the 1MDB board and management had the proposals thoroughly discussed, deliberated, decided, and done due diligence.

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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