He told the High Court today the management had informed the directors about the proposal at a meeting on Sept 18, 2009, and that neither he nor the directors were “in the loop”.
“When he (Najib) told me to okay the PSI joint venture, I interpreted it as a sign that ‘he was in the know’,” Bakke said, in response to defence lawyer Shafee Abdullah’s question about his phone conversation with the former prime minister on Sept 26, 2009.
“It did not cross my mind to tell him (Najib) on the phone that we only knew about PSI one week earlier.”
Previously, Bakke had told the court that Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) attended the 1MDB board meeting on Sept 26, 2009, where Bakke answered Najib’s call on Low’s mobile phone and where Najib told him to proceed with the PSI joint venture. Bakke had told the court then that he had had his own doubts about the joint venture.
Today he affirmed: “We (directors) would not have rushed through the PSI joint venture. If the prime minister had not spoken to me, we would have benefited from looking at it like how we would normally do (for any proposal).”
The contents of Low’s words and his presence at the meeting were removed in the National Audit Department’s (JAN’s) report on 1MDB on the grounds that it was a “sensitive issue” and to prevent the opposition from “spinning” the facts.
The other items that were removed were two 1MDB 2014 financial statements, the issuance of Islamic medium-term notes, and information on the Islamic bonds’ secondary subscriber.
Najib is standing trial for alleged abuse of power as the prime minister and finance minister to obtain immunity from legal action and causing amendments to the final 1MDB audit report before it was tabled at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting.
Former 1MDB chief executive officer Arul Kanda is accused of abetting him.
Bakke also told the court he had a “suspicion” that Najib was involved in the “scheme of things”.
Ex-CEO confirmed my ‘suspicion’
When Shafee continued to press Bakke on the latter’s “suspicion” remark and if he had any evidence to back it, the latter replied that former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi confirmed his suspicion in 2015 when they met.
“He told me he had taken instructions from Jho Low and the prime minister,” Bakke said.
When re-examined by Gopal Sri Ram on whether Bakke’s conversation with Shahrol about Najib’s alleged involvement had “allayed or confirmed your suspicion”, Bakke said Shahrol had confirmed his suspicion.
Bakke also told the court that he was not consulted by JAN when the department conducted its audit exercise on 1MDB from 2015 to 2016.
“I was out of the picture,” he said.
The hearing continues on April 13 before Judge Zaini Mazlan.