1MDB trial: MACC officer contradicts colleague, says Saudi trip was to get ‘cut and paste’ statements on Najib’s RM2.6b

PUTRAJAYA, Feb 21 — Two Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers — who went to Saudi Arabia in 2015 to investigate if an alleged Saudi prince had donated RM2.6 billion which entered Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s accounts — have given contradicting testimony in Najib’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB trial).

Previously, MACC officer Fikri Ab Rahim as Najib’s eighth defence witness denied that MACC investigators had just “cut and pasted” pre-prepared and completed statements from both the purported Saudi prince’s representative and Low Taek Jho’s associate Eric Tan Kim Loong during the 2015 Saudi trip.

But today, Mohd Nasharudin Amir — who was MACC’s investigating officer for the RM2.6 billion in Najib’s bank accounts — said that MACC had gone to Saudi Arabia to just “cut and paste” those two individual’s statements for the investigations, without asking any questions and without getting any documents.

Testifying as the ninth defence witness in Najib’s 1MDB trial, Nasharudin said MACC had recorded the alleged prince Prince Saud’s representative Mohamad Abdullah Al-Koman’s statement and Tan’s statement on November 29, 2015 in a palace in Saudi Arabia.

Mohamad Abdullah had given his statement to the MACC allegedly on behalf of a “Prince Saud Abdulaziz Majid Al Saud”, who purportedly promised to give millions of US dollars as “gifts” to Najib through four “donation” letters including via Tanore Finance Corporation. Tan was Tanore’s owner.

Asked by deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib, Nasharudin agreed that Mohamad Abdullah’s statement of four and a half pages had already been prepared and MACC only had to “cut and paste” it into MACC”s format, and that Tan’s statement was similarly just cut and pasted into MACC’s format and Tan was not asked any questions.

Nasharudin confirmed that those two individuals did not give any documents to support what they told the MACC in the investigations.

Akram: Do you agree with me or not, from your view, from start to end, the Saudi Arabia trip had already been pre-planned, you only went there to complete the story, go and take statements, no need to ask anything, go eat and come back only?

Nasharudin: Correct.

Following the recording of those two statements in Saudi Arabia, Nasharudin said he had as the investigation officer recommended for further investigations to be carried out.

Nasharudin agreed that this meant he as the investigation officer was not satisfied from the statements in Saudi Arabia that the purported four donation letters are genuine, and that he was also not satisfied that the money which entered Najib’s accounts was from the person that MACC had recorded the statement.

Nasharudin was the investigating officer for a complaint to the MACC against then prime minister Najib for the offence under the MACC Act’s Section 16 of accepting bribes or corrupt money, in relation to Najib’s receiving of US$681 million (equivalent to RM2.6 billion) from Tanore Finance Corporation.

The trip by five officers (four from MACC, one from the Attorney-General’s Chambers) from November 27 to November 30, 2015 was intended to verify if the four alleged donation letters were genuine and written by Prince Saud, and if the RM2.6 billion were donations from Prince Saud to Najib.

Did MACC meet the alleged Saudi prince who promised donations to Najib?

But when asked about the November 29, 2015 meeting between the five-man Malaysian team with three alleged Saudi princes at a palace in Saudi Arabia, Nasharudin told Najib’s lawyer Wan Azwan Aiman Wan Fakhruddin that he was “not sure” if investigators had met Prince Saud there.

Explaining why he was unsure if he had met Prince Saud there, Nasharudin said he did not know this individual and he was not introduced to this alleged prince.

Nasharudin said Prince Saud was introduced to the “bosses”, namely Tan Sri Azam Baki who was MACC’s director of investigations (now MACC chief), and Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad who represented the AGC (and later became MACC chief).

Saying that the best way to investigate if the four donation letters were genuine was to interview the alleged author Prince Saud, Nasharudin said the one of the Arab men at the meeting was introduced to be Prince Saud and had provided his passport to the Malaysian delegation.

But Nasharudin said the passport was not passed to him, and that it was only passed to the other members of the Malaysian delegation.

Asked by Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Nasharudin said he was not satisfied that the man met in Saudi Arabia was Prince Saud, but could not recall if he had ever raised his dissatisfaction to his superior officers while in the meeting hall at the palace or subsequently.

Asked by Akram, Nasharudin confirmed that there were three alleged princes in the Saudi meeting, with the middle one said to be Prince Turki was the only one who spoke throughout the meeting and that only the one whom Prince Turki introduced as Prince Saud had produced a passport.

Confirming he did not do any profiling such as looking at photographs of these alleged princes before the Saudi trip, Nasharudin said other officers in the Malaysian delegation had only looked at the alleged Prince Saud’s passport briefly before it was returned.

MACC officer Datuk Mohd Hafaz Nazar then recorded statements from both Prince Saud’s representative and Tan in a separate room, while Nasharudin assisted Hafaz in recording those statements.

Nasharudin said he was “not satisfied” with the statement recorded from Prince Saud via the latter’s representative, and later also confirmed that Prince Saud was not present when his representative’s statement was taken.

Previously, Fikri said he had met the three alleged princes for the first time in the 2015 Saudi meeting, and that he would not be able to tell if Prince Saud’s passport was a false passport as he was not an expert.

Fikri had testified in the 1MDB trial that he was satisfied that the passport’s photo matched the person before him and that the passport’s name matched the Prince Saud name in the donation letters, but also said he did not know if the person in Saudi was the one who wrote the four donation letters.

Fikri had previously also told the court that Nasharudin had shown him a photograph of Prince Turki before the Saudi trip as part of profiling, but Nasharudin’s court testimony today contradicts that.

In this trial, Najib has been insisting that the RM2 billion which entered his accounts were not 1MDB money but Saudi donations, while the prosecution has been disputing the four donation letters as fabricated documents.

Najib’s 1MDB trial before trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes next Monday.