Habibul Rahman Kadir Shah said the money was used to pay for intelligence gathering for Barisan Nasional.
“I used the money to gather intelligence and establish goodwill among the political parties,” said Habibul Rahman, testifying as the 23rd prosecution witness in Najib’s money laundering and criminal breach of trust trial.
Last week, a prosecution witness, lawyer Ashraf Abdul Razak, a former partner at the law firm of Zulqarnain & Co, said Habibul had given him the RM2.5 million cheque dated Feb 2, 2015, as the latter was one of the firm’s clients.
Ashraf had said Habibul paid the money for his services from a defence contract given to the businessman.
Cross examined by Najib’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Habibul said Ashraf’s testimony was incorrect as he was never paid for any defence work.
“I am not involved in any form of defence contract because I will have to declare it as my income,” he said.
It was revealed earlier in court that Najib had issued cheques valued at RM10.7 milion to 15 recipients under two AmIslamic Bank accounts.
Habibul said he never asked Najib what was his source of money when he collected the RM2.5 million cheque.
“No, but it should be political donation. If you are prime minister, everyone wants to give money to operate, including Umno,” he said to a further question by Shafee.
Najib is facing six charges of money laundering and criminal breach of trust (CBT) in the transfer of RM42 million to his account from SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB.
He is also accused of abusing his power as prime minister by giving government guarantees on SRC International’s RM4 billion loan from Retirement Fund Inc.
He was charged with committing the offences at AmIslamic Bank Bhd in Jalan Raja Chulan and the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya between Aug 17, 2011, and Feb 10, 2015.