In testifying in his SRC International trial, Najib said Husni, the then second finance minister, did not make any formal request to him to bring back SRC International’s RM3.6 billion.
“It would have been effective if he had a plan. He should have come up with a proper plan,” he said, when asked a series of questions by ad-hoc prosecutor V Sithambaram about the money and Husni.
Husni had told the court previously that he had met Najib to get his consent to fly to Switzerland in an attempt to resolve the issue of frozen funds, believed to be from SRC International. He added that Najib had rejected his request.
Sithambaram then asked: “If the government had sent a representative, be it the finance minister or second finance minister, would it have been more effective in getting back the money?”
Najib replied:”That is debatable”.
Sithambaram who is leading the SRC International prosecution, then asked Najib as to why he had not shown any interest in recovering such a large sum of public funds.
The former finance minister replied that he had not been informed about the company’s situation by the board of directors.
Sithambaran: In November 2015, the Treasury had recommended a RM100 million grant as short term loan to SRC as KWAP (Retirement Fund Incorporated) sought to declare an event of default, and were you surprised?
Najib: I was somehow surprised at that time.
Najib also told the court he approved RM250 million as standby credit to SRC International in July 2016 as well as another RM300 million in December 2017, in attempts to avoid further calls of event of default by KWAP.
Sithambaram pointed out that “alarm bells were ringing” on KWAP’s second call for event of default, and asked if Najib had taken any personal interest in taking back the RM3.6 billion.
“I left it to the (SRC International) management. They told us the money was there,” Najib replied.
The ad-hoc prosecutor then suggested to the former prime minister that no proper action was taken to recover the SRC International funds even until his term in office ended on May 9, 2018.
Najib agreed to the suggestion.
The hearing continues on Jan 20 before High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.
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 Incorporated.