SINGAPORE (Nov 17): Prosecution on Thursday morning put forward more evidence in court ex-BSI wealth planner Yeo Jiawei was close to 1MDB mastermind Low Taek Jho.
Prosecutors say Yeo, who is on trial for four charges of tampering with witnesses, had flown as part of Low's entourage from Shanghai to Hong Kong on June 4, 2015. According to a flight manifest presented in court this morning, there were six other passengers on the flight.
They include Low's girlfriend from Penang, Jesselyn Chuan Teik Ying; Low's close associate Eric Tan Kim Loong; Low's private banker at BSI, Yak Yew Chee; and former 1MDB staff Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, who was wanted by Malaysian authorities for 1MDB-related investigations.
There were also two other individuals: Kee Kok Thiam, and Laogumnerd Phengphian, a Thai national who was reported as the seller of a New York penthouse last year by the New York Post.
Under cross examination, Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Kiat Pheng noted discrepancies in Yeo’s statements and testimonies over the last two days of the trial.
Yeo tried to explain that he had given varying accounts as he felt that the prosecution was taking things out of context. Yeo said the prosecution had attempted to portray him as someone close to Low, which he wasn’t.
"If you say I am up-playing, then I say you are down playing," retorted DPP Tan.
Yeo has maintained that he was merely a junior banker taking instructions from his senior colleagues, who in turn received orders from clients.
But the prosecution produced an email chain originating with an instruction from Nik Faisal, managing director of SRC International, which is a 1MDB subsidiary and also client of BSI.
According to the email chain date April 2012, Swampillai wrote to Yeo and asked to be briefed on Faisal's instructions. This contradicted Yeo’s claims that he always took instructions from Swampillai.
In response to this evidence, Yeo said that Swampillai might have been away from office that day.
Yeo has maintained all along that before he left BSI in June 2014, his role had been to take instructions from clients. After he went on to become an independent consultant, his role was more like a relationship manager, or business introducer, to bring clients to service providers such as Amicorp.
Under questioning by Tan, Yeo told the court that he earned between US$12 million-US$15 million from fees for introducing clients such as Low and his family, 1MDB, and also Al Husseiny from Abu Dhabi's Aabar.
The court had heard earlier that there are five entities with names identical or similar to Aabar.
Yeo also told the court that when he was in Shanghai, he met a another client from Abu Dhabi via Yak. This client is Ali Eid Almheiri, executive director of real estate and infrastructure at another Abu Dhabi state entity, Mubadala.
The hearing continues this afternoon.