This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on December 5, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Razak claimed that the US$800 million donation he personally received from Saudi ruler King Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Saud was to prevent the spread of the Arab Spring’s ill effects into Malaysia.

During his examination-in-chief by defence lawyer Rahmat Hazlan yesterday, Najib testified that King Abdullah had donated US$800 million through a series of transactions from Tanore Finance Corp into his AmBank account in early 2013, as a “gift that I can spend at my absolute discretion”.

These AmBank Islamic accounts held by Najib were managed by former SRC managing director Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, who was appointed the mandated authority by the former premier. Nik Faisal is currently missing.

As the then president of both Umno and Barisan Nasional, Najib said he was empowered to collect donations for party operations and for expenses related to general elections. He noted that King Abdullah knew that Malaysia was going to have a general election in 2013.

“Basically it seemed like he didn’t want the negative effects of the Arab Spring to spread to Malaysia mainly because he had a positive view of how Malaysia is emerging as a great example for countries that practise the true meaning of Islam.

“King Abdullah wanted Malaysia to be a catalyst for a modern country that practises Islam,” he said.

Besides seeking to avert the domino effect of the uprising in the country, Najib added that the Saudi ruler hoped the stability of the Malaysian government’s administration would serve as a model for the advancement of modern Islamic countries.

The court was shown a letter dated March 1, 2013 to Najib from a “certified representative” of King Abdullah to prove that the transactions were indeed a donation from the Saudi royal family.

The prosecution, however, disputed the content of the letter.

When asked how was the fund utilised, Najib said he used it for charitable initiatives as well as for election allocation in order to ensure that BN remained as the government of Malaysia.

“This will ensure political stability, in line with what King Abdullah wanted,” he said.

However, Najib said that in July 2013, there were over RM2.1 billion left in the account, which was significantly more than what he had planned to use in the near future.

With this, he said he felt “uncomfortable” having a lot of money in his own account as he was worried that if the information was leaked, it would surely be spun out of context for political reasons.

“So I decided to return back almost all of the donated money that had not been used and just kept some of it. I also believe that giving back a large amount of those donations that I did not use is a sign of my good intentions to the Saudi Arabia Royal family that they will consider supporting me in the future.

“In the end, about US$620 million was returned to the fund’s lender, Tanore Finance Corp, and the remaining RM162 million was transferred to one of the new accounts I opened in August 2013,” he explained.

Najib is facing three counts of criminal breach of trust, one charge of abusing his power as prime minister, and three counts of money laundering over SRC funds amounting to RM42 million.

The proceedings, before Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, continue on Monday morning.