By Aathi Shankar
The Kuala Lumpur High Court heard today that fugitive businessman Jho Low and 2 others had plotted to transfer RM27 million from Datuk Seri Najib Razak accounts to Putra Perdana Development (PPD).
The money transaction took place on December 29, 2014 while the former premier was in Hawaii, testified former Ambank officer Joanna Yu Ging Ping at Najib’s graft trial on Monday, August 5, 2019.
Transcripts derived from Blackberry Messenger (BBM) digital evidence revealed that Jho Low, whose real name is Low Taek Jho, and Joanna Yu had a prior conversation on December 24, 2014, on how to transfer the money from Najib’s private account in Ambank to PPD’s accounts.
At 9.36am on that day, Joanna Yu has suggested to Jho Low to arrange Najib to issue a cheque of RM27 million to effect the transaction.
Jho Low, however, disagreed with Joanna Yu’s suggestion as Najib was in Hawaii while his cheque book was in Kuala Lumpur.
Later they both agreed on making the transaction through Rentas Transfer system.
At 1.30pm, Jho Low told Joanna Yu to draft a letter of transfer instruction and email it to SRC International Sdn Bhd former CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil at nik.faisal.src.gmail.com.
Joanna Yu duly did so at 1.46pm.
That letter of transfer instruction was supposed to be signed, scanned and resent by Najib, who was in Hawaii, back to Nik Faisal, who will in turn email it to Joanna Yu.
At 2.30pm, Jho Low sent Joanna Yu a BBM message informing her that she would receive the scanned copy of the letter of transfer instruction with Najib’s signature on it later in the day.
Nik Faisal has emailed the copy of the letter with Najib’s signature at 4pm to Joanna Yu.
The RM27 million was then duly transferred from Najib’s account to PPD accounts on December 29, 2014.
The 48-year-old Joanna Yu, the 54th prosecution witness will continue to testify before Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali tomorrow.
Najib currently faces seven corruption charges pertaining to misappropriation of RM42 million belonging to SRC International.
The charges were 3 each for CBT under Section 409 of the Penal Code and money laundering under Section 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities (AMLA) Act 2001, and 1 for abuse of power under Section 23 of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Act (MACC) 2009.
Najib was charged with committing the offenses at AmIslamic Bank Bhd in Jalan Raja Chulan and the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya between Aug 17, 2011, and Feb 10, 2015.
Ironically, the same amount of RM27 million was transferred from PPD to Najib’s Ambank account in July 2014.
The RM27 million as part of the RM42 million that the prosecution alleged Najib had misappropriated from SRC International.
The question now is how did the prosecution press corruption charges when Najib had returned the money?
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