This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 16, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: A former senior partner of law firm Hisham, Sobri & Kadir who acted for Retirement Fund Inc (KWAP) told the High Court that SRC International Sdn Bhd will have to repay more than RM9.2 billion for borrowing RM4 billion from the fund in 2011 and 2012.

This was revealed by the 48th prosecution witness Mohd Shuhaimi Ismail, 50, who helped with the documentation of the agreements.

Shuhaimi, now legal director to Bandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd, told the High Court here that he had helped in drafting the agreements between KWAP and SRC in August 2011 and March 2012, to facilitate the fund’s loans to the company.

“The Bai’al-Inah Islamic facility was offered, where a facility agreement, a sales agreement, a purchase agreement and a government guarantee agreement [were] formulated.

“The firm Hisham, Sobri & Kadir prepared the documents for this purpose of the first and second loans. Under Islamic principles, a separate sale and purchase agreement had to be prepared before a facility is given [marking an actual sale and purchase],” the witness told the court.

Shuhaimi added that from the first facility, SRC was required to pay RM4.6 billion over 10 years, and the same amount for the second loan over the same period.

“This makes the total amount to be paid by SRC in excess of RM9.2 billion,” he said when replying to Deputy Public Prosecutor Muhammad Saifuddin Hashim Musaimi’s questions.

Shuhaimi said the first agreement in August 2011 was signed by KWAP’s then chief executive officer Datuk Azian Mohd Noh and SRC’s former managing director Nik Faisal Arif Kamil.

He told the court that the first facility was signed on Aug 26, 2011.

Documents pertaining to the second loan — such as the facility agreement, sale and purchase agreement and government guarantee letter — were signed on March 27, 2012 by Azian and Datuk Suboh Md Yassin, an ex-director of SRC.

Shuhaimi was testifying at the trial of former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak, facing three counts of criminal breach of trust and three money laundering charges and one abuse of power charge involving RM42 million of SRC funds.

Najib is accused of getting RM27 million, RM5 million on Dec 26, 2014 and the remaining RM10 million on Feb 10, 2015.

According to testimonies by ministry of finance officials last week, KWAP was asked to disburse the funds from the second loan before the government guarantee letter was issued.

Meanwhile, Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali ruled that Najib is allowed to attend Parliament today as it is slated to debate a bill introduced by the government to lower the voting age to 18 from 21.

Justice Nazlan said the matter was brought up by the defence through an early notice and the court recognised that the matter is of great importance.

“Hence, this court is allowing the accused to be in Parliament from 11am and for the proceedings of the day to be adjourned and replaced on a Friday should the trial not conclude [after Aug 15],” the judge ruled.

Najib’s lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told the court that Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman who tabled the Bill for the constitutional amendment, had written in to every member of parliament (MP) to be present and vote in this “historical occasion”.

“As Najib has been appointed as Barisan Nasional adviser, he has to be there not as a party whip, but to represent the opposition coalition.

“It is a historic occasion as the government requires a two-thirds majority to make this constitutional amendment and now the [Pakatan Harapan] government has a simple majority,” said the senior lawyer.

Appointed lawyer Datuk V Sithambaram said he leaves it to the court to decide on the matter but stands by the submissions made by Attorney-General Tommy Thomas in objecting to an adjournment for Najib to attend the Parliament sitting when the Bill requiring all MPs to declare their assets was tabled on July 1.

Justice Nazlan also fixed this Thursday to hear submissions on the issue raised by the defence over Najib not being allowed to get bank documents of his AmBank account following a directive issued by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.