KUALA LUMPUR (May 20): Former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's lawyer said fugitive financier Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) was like an "an octopus with plenty of tentacles" in his alleged elaborate plan to siphon off billions of dollars from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who is defending Najib against power abuse and money laundering charges in the 1MDB Tanore trial at the High Court, was emphasising Jho Low’s influence in manipulating people globally.
“Jho Low is like an octopus with plenty of tentacles reaching throughout the globe, that’s what we want to show,” Shafee said after judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah questioned another defence lawyer, Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed, over his cross-examination of former 1MDB CEO Mohd Hazem Abd Rahman.
Wan Aizuddin had been reading excerpts from a 2017 news report in The Edge which carried the full statement of facts in a case between the Singapore Attorney-General and Falcon Private Bank’s Singapore branch manager Jens Fred Sturzenegger.
Sturzenegger was convicted in relation to millions of US dollars originating from 1MDB and flowing to and through Falcon Private Bank accounts of four entities allegedly ultimately controlled by Jho Low. The Swiss national was jailed 28 weeks and fined S$128,000
Wan Aizuddin was reading portions of the statement of facts to Hazem to show him what Jho Low had done. However the witness said that he had no knowledge of this.
This was when Justice Sequerah asked Wan Aizuddin the purpose of reading out chunks of the statement. The lawyer replied that the portions of the statement were relevant to his client’s defence to show that "the real thief was Jho Low".
Shafee then stood up to back up Wan Aizuddin, telling the judge that the defence was referring to The Edge article because Singapore authorities had turned down its requests to get the full court transcripts of the case.
Falcon is owned by Aabar Investments PJS, a company owned by the Abu Dhabi government.
The charges against Sturzenegger have shed light on what happened at Falcon after more than US$1.265 billion was moved to four accounts at the Singapore branch in March 2013, and from there flowed to other accounts. (The US Department of Justice has said the US$1.265 billion came from proceeds from the US$3 billion bonds issued in March 2013 by 1MDB Global Investments Ltd [1MDB GIL].)
Hazem denied being ambiguous about fund transfers to protect Jho Low
As Hazem was CEO at that material time when the US$3 billion bonds had come into 1MDB GIL and had allegedly been siphoned off in a matter of weeks by Jho Low, Wan Aizuddin had asked him if he was working with Jho Low to siphon the funds.
Hazem disagreed with the lawyer but said that he did have reservations about the outflow of money despite not making any formal complaint about it.
The US$3 billion bonds were raised for a purported joint venture (JV) between 1MDB and Aabar in equal shares. The JV company was called ADMIC. The purpose of this alleged JV was to develop the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) in Kuala Lumpur.
The sum was disbursed into the account of 1MBD GIL with BSI Bank at Lugano in Switzerland.
From that, a sum of US$1,060,606,065 was paid into the account of two fiduciary funds, namely, Devonshire Funds Ltd and EEMF. Devonshire received US$646,464,649 in five tranches over two days (March 20 and 21, 2013). EEMF received US$414,141,416 in three tranches, also within the same two days.
On March 21, 2013, Devonshire transferred US$430 million to Granton Property Holding Ltd which is a company controlled by Eric Tan, Jho Low's partner in the scam. On the same day Granton transferred the whole of that sum to Tanore Finance Corporation, also a company controlled by Eric Tan. Also, on the same day, Devonshire transferred a sum of US$210 million to Tanore. Then, between March 22 and 25, 2013, EEMF transferred US$250 million to Tanore, which therefore by that date had US$890 million in its hands.
Between March 21 and April 10, 2013, Tanore transferred US$681 million to Najib’s account.
The JV never took off and the companies that the money was siphoned off to were all controlled by Jho Low and his associates.
Hazem today admitted that while he had the opportunity to ask Aabar about fulfilling its end of the JV, he did not reach out to the company because another Jho Low associate, Jasmine Loo, was handling it.
Hazem also said that while he had contact with Mohamed Badawy Al Husseiny, who was with Aabar, he did not ask him about the JV because he felt that Aabar was not interested in the venture.
“I felt that they were not interested in it,” Hazem said.
He said that there was nothing he could do if Aabar did not want to honour the terms of the JV, adding that while he may have had contact with Badawy, he could not force them to raise their funds.
Najib is facing 25 charges in the trial, which will continue on Monday (May 24). The charges comprise four counts of abuse of power involving RM2.3 billion worth of 1MDB funds that are said to have been siphoned through Tanore, and 21 counts of money laundering.
The Edge is covering the trial live here.
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