He said he bought the watch for Rosmah’s birthday, which fell on Dec 10, during a family holiday to the US in December 2014 and, at the same time, he also played golf with then US president Barack Obama.
“The meeting over the golf game was widely reported in the media,” Najib said, adding that he returned to Malaysia shortly after that when he was told of the Kelantan floods.
Previously, Ambank’s vice-president in charge of credit card authorisation and fraud management Yeoh Eng Leong had testified that a sum of RM466,330.11 had been charged to Najib’s Visa Platinum credit card at the French luxury brand’s Honolulu outlet.
Yeoh also said RM127,017.46 was charged to the same card at Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, in January 2015, as well as RM3.3 million charged at de Grisogono’s outlet in Sardinia, Italy, on Aug 8, 2014.
“The RM127,017.46 was paid for me and my support staff’s accommodation expenses at Shangri-La during my holiday,” Najib said.
“I took the opportunity to meet my Thai counterpart, Prayut Chan-o-cha, at the same time to discuss how the Thai government could help us in the floods.”
As prime minister, he said, he could have been reimbursed for the hotel expenditure from the government but he did not do so.
Najib also told the court about a purchase from a Swiss jeweller, adding that he bought a gift for then Qatari prime minister Sheikh Ahmed Jassim Al Thani’s wife, Noor Abdulaziz Abdulla Turki Al-Subaie.
He said he met the couple, who were also on holiday.
He said both countries had good diplomatic relations, and the Qatari couple had also bought gifts for Rosmah during their visits to Malaysia.
“It is something that we could do to repay their generosity, and I believe that the de Grisogono purchases were allowed for diplomatic purposes,” he said, adding that Noor Abdulaziz sent Rosmah a “thank you” note after they returned home.
Najib said he did not use public funds to buy the gift for Noor Abdulaziz as he believed he was entitled to spend the funds from his personal account.
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigating officer Rosli Hussain had testified earlier that a purported letter of gratitude, dated Aug 15, 2014, from Noor Abdulaziz to Rosmah was never raised during the course of investigations.
Previously, Najib had taken to Facebook to say that his credit card was used to purchase gifts for a member of the royal family, adding that it was the norm to present gifts to foreign dignitaries.
Najib today also said he had never used the funds in his account or issued cheques for personal purposes as most of the cheques were paid to political parties and NGOs and for Corporate Social Responsibiity (CSR) purposes.
“It is the job of the Umno president and BN chairman to get funds for his party. Division leaders will come to me and say they need funds to run their community and charity activities.
“I did not spend the money to seek support or to buy votes,” he said.
Najib is facing six charges of money laundering and criminal breach of trust 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.
The hearing before High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali continues.