This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 4, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said the defence will soon reveal why SRC International Sdn Bhd’s ex-director Datuk Suboh Md Yassin was told to leave the country by former managing director and chief executive officer Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil.

He said the defence had managed to “punch holes” in the case and intends to give a summary in the upcoming proceedings on July 8.

“All these monies going in and out of SRC were happening even before [Najib] was appointed adviser emeritus. All this talk of the adviser emeritus defrauding the company is a total red herring.

“On Monday (July 8), we will do a round-up of all the areas we had punched holes. You will also find out why Suboh [had] suggested that Nik Faisal told him to run away,” he told reporters yesterday, following the conclusion of day 32 of the trial.

Suboh fled Malaysia in 2015 following a threatening telephone call from a person purportedly from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) telling him to not meet the MACC, and leave the country.

He then spent a month in Bangkok, Thailand, before given flight tickets to Abu Dhabi, where he met MACC officers.

Muhammad Shafee also gave a recap of what transpired over the past three days, outlining the points that the defence had established in court. These include a secret bank account under SRC ending 736, set up before the board members joined the company, and were not notified about.

Nik Faisal was a signatory of the account.

“Straight away you can tell the culprit is Nik Faisal. He cheated the board regarding the audit accounts and he misled the board on the 736 account,” he said.

He added that none of the board members had personally checked with Najib regarding the instructions issued by Nik Faisal that were purportedly from the former premier, not even SRC’s former chairman Tan Sri Ismee Ismail who was close to Najib.

“How are you saying that the adviser emeritus was in the know and defrauding the company when he was kept in the dark? The emeritus adviser was never invited for a board meeting either, not even once,” he said.