This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 7, 2022 - March 13, 2022

DESPITE increasing regulatory scrutiny of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), especially in the US, fugitive-financier Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) was “quite comfortable and confident” that the issue would be resolved as Datuk Seri Najib Razak was still the prime minister then.

This was revealed by former Goldman Sachs banker Tim Leissner in his testimony on March 1 (Tuesday), according to transcripts obtained by The Edge.

In his testimony, Leissner also claimed that Jho Low had solicited the assistance of Najib and the then attorney-general, Tan Sri Apandi Ali, to obtain the release of Leissner’s subordinate, Roger Ng, from detention in Singapore.

Leissner is the key prosecution witness in the trial against Ng.

“He (Jho Low) was confident he was able to resolve this 1MDB issue where the then prime minister of Malaysia was still Datuk Seri Najib Razak.”

In February 2016, Leissner had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury but he was not sure if he was “a witness, a subject, or a target of this subpoena”.

He became all the more nervous as Ng had been detained by the Singapore authorities in 2017, and only later released.

“Essentially, the walls were closing in,” Leissner said. “I knew what I had done, and what Roger had done as part of the scheme. So [I] knew that I would be in trouble.”

Ng’s detention came as a particular shock — it was a “big shift” that caused Leissner “great concern”.

The 50-year-old former banker also told the court that Lim Hwee Bin, Ng’s wife, told him that her husband, who was at that time being detained by the Singapore authorities, had maintained his (Ng’s) story of just focusing on the bonds and financial aspects of the bonds that Goldman Sachs had helped 1MDB issue.

“She told me that Jho had, in fact, gotten help from the Trump administration at the time to get Ng out of Singapore, who had called the Singapore government — Jho Low confirmed that narrative as well in a discussion I had with him — and that over time, not on this first occasion, but afterwards, she wanted to make sure that Judy Chan (Leissner’s then wife) was also going to stick with this cover story that we had come up [with],” he said.

He had earlier told the court how Chan’s account in Hong Kong was used by him to receive the bribe money after Goldman Sachs secured the Project Magnolia deal (1MDB’s first bond issue of US$1.75 billion), and how the money from that account was transferred to Ng’s account in Singapore.

Leissner also testified about Najib’s hand in securing Ng’s release from the island republic.

Ng was detained by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) of the Singapore Police Force to assist investigations into the transfer of money related to 1MDB — he was not allowed to leave Singapore and his passport was taken.

Several weeks after Ng’s detention, Lim told Leissner that she had spoken to Jho Low and also Terence Geh, who was then 1MDB’s deputy chief financial officer and Ng’s close friend.

“She had spoken to both of them to seek help from the Malaysian government to get Ng released in Singapore so there would be a government effort to get him back to Malaysia.

“Jho, whom I spoke to also, because we shared, again, the same concerns, as being part of the scheme, was very concerned about what Ng was saying to the police and the Singapore authorities. Jho confirmed that he had spoken to [Lim] and that Geh had spoken to him and he was actually saying he was talking (actively) to prime minister Najib and the attorney-general to seek Roger’s release,” Leissner told the New York court.

“Yes, we shared a concern that Ng had been put in this situation and that he was being questioned about this very scheme that we were trying to hide and that we knew was illegal, so we shared the same concern.

“I was also trying to see if Jho Low was, in fact, you know, making an effort to get him out of Singapore and back to Malaysia, which he said he was doing, confirming what [Lim] had told me before, that he was speaking to the prime minister and the attorney-general to seek his release,” the witness said.

Leissner revealed that Jho Low had also sought the help of Jared Kushner — the son-in-law and former senior adviser to then US president Donald Trump — over a possible one-time settlement to end further investigations.

The settlement of “several billion dollars of payment”, however, would only be a privilege reserved for Jho Low’s loyal henchmen, who had remained tight-lipped about details of the scheme.

“… He and his lawyers were in active dialogues with the then administration under Trump, that he had met Jared Kushner in Beijing and that it looked like the president at the time and his close advisers were actually supportive of a settlement on the 1MDB issue that included basically taking care of …

“Ensuring that everybody who had been around Jho, had stuck with Jho, essentially, would be part of the settlement, one settlement, one payment, effectively, that would stop any further investigation, would really be a settlement [that] would stop any further investigations,” Leissner testified.

However, the Department of Justice (DoJ) was not on board with this and therefore the settlement faltered, Leissner said, adding “at the very top level in the US government, that had been agreed”.

Jho Low had also related to Leissner that the former had hired former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie as his lawyer and even paid him US$10 million in “a success fee” if a settlement was reached.

Prosecutor Drew Rolle: And as Jho Low is reporting this to you, did you have any idea if anything he was saying was true?

Leissner: I did not have any independent verification of that, sir.

According to a Reuters report, Christie had denied the allegations, saying that there were never any discussions between him and the Trump administration over dropping criminal investigations or other charges in relation to Jho Low or others in exchange for payments. “Nor was there any agreement for a legal success fee to me to negotiate such a result”.

Jho Low was indicted alongside Ng by US federal prosecutors in 2018. He has yet to be arrested by Malaysian or US authorities.

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