Ismee Ismail said this when cross-examined on whether he knew of Najib’s intention to halt the issuance of the Islamic medium-term notes (IMTN) in 2009.
Lawyer Hariharan Tara Singh pointed out that the Terengganu palace had written to Najib on May 28, 2009 saying that the then prime minister had agreed to withhold the bonds issuance pending a review after meeting with Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin.
“He was not pushing for the bonds to be issued,” he said, disputing Ismee’s testimony.
Ismee agreed with the defence’s suggestion, and said his impression that Najib wanted the bonds issuance to proceed “may be wrong”.
He had previously told the court that he and former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi met Najib at his Langgak Duta home on the evening of May 22, 2009.
Earlier that day, Shahrol and Ismee had an audience with Sultan Mizan, where the Terengganu ruler ordered them to sign the documents to suspend the issuance of the bonds.
Ismee testified that during the meeting with Najib, the former prime minister had asked why they had signed the IMTN suspension.
He added that he assumed Najib wanted the RM5 billion bonds issuance to go on.
The court heard how TIA initially wanted to develop Pulau Bidong, which used to house Vietnamese refugees from the 1970s to 1990s, as the state’s new tourism spot.
TIA wanted to raise RM5 billion through the IMTN, and Ambank Islamic was selected for the purpose where the bonds would be guaranteed by the federal government.
Besides that, Ismee told the court there was no urgency for TIA to raise RM5 billion for Pulau Bidong.
He agreed with the defence that the terms and the high interest rate of the bonds were “not favourable” to TIA.
Hariharan: Would bonds involving a huge sum of money be issued for a project that was almost non-existent?
Ismee: To me, it was not really a non-existent project at the material time.
The hearing before High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah continues on March 21.
Najib is standing trial on 25 charges of money laundering and abuse of power over 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion allegedly deposited in his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.