KUALA LUMPUR, April 7 ― Millions of ringgit owned or borrowed by 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) have already been paid into the personal bank accounts of former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the court confirmed today. ex-director of IMDB, Tan Sri Ismee Ismail.
Ismee was testifying as the 13th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial for the embezzlement of more than RM2 billion of 1MDB funds.
Previously, Najib’s lawyers had suggested to Ismee that Najib had allegedly not received any personal benefits from 1MDB’s transactions and agreements, but lead prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram disputed this today by showing organizational charts of the flow of money from 1MDB agreements and other documents to Ismee.
With this 1MDB trial involving four phases of 1MDB transactions and agreements that resulted in billions of ringgits allegedly being misappropriated from the company, Sri Ram highlighted a few of these transactions in flow charts presented at Ismee today.
The transactions Sri Ram showed Ismee today included US$9.99 million on February 24, 2011 and an additional US$9.99 million on June 14, 2011 which made its way into an AmIslamic bank account with the number ending in 9694 of the first phase of 1MDB transactions, and funds worth RM15 million and RM75 million transferred on October 30, 2012 and November 19, 2012 to the same account under the second phase of transactions.
From the flow charts, Sri Ram also showed money flows of RM45 million in five transactions between October and December 2014 to the AmIslamic Bank account with the bank account number ending in 1880 from the fourth phase.
These transactions which came to light today are said to amount to a total of RM195 million which was paid into the two AmIslamic bank accounts, with Ismee agreeing based on documents showing that these two bank accounts were in fact those of Najib.
For the RM15 million and RM75 million transactions that Sri Ram highlighted, he then asked Ismee if the latter would like to “review your answer given during cross-examination that the accused did not derive any benefit staff of these transactions”.
Ismee then confirmed that the money had gone to Najib’s accounts.
Ismea: From the flowchart I can see that the money went to account 9694.
Sri Ram: Belonging to the accused?
Ismea: Yes.
Sri Ram: And these sums were in fact sums of 1MDB?
Ismea: Yes.
Ismee gave similar answers to similar questions from Sri Ram, who disputed the suggestion by Najib’s lawyers that the former prime minister did not benefit from 1MDB transactions.
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