Najib told his 1MDB trial, which is being conducted here this week, that the task force was not dissolved pursuant to any directive he issued.
Instead, he said it was an “administrative decision” communicated at the “appropriate institutional level”.
He said the accusations against him were a deliberate distortion of the facts and reflected an attempt to sensationalise the 1MDB matter rather than present the truth.
“There is no evidence to support the claim that such instructions came from me,” Najib said when reading his witness statement before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
The prosecution contends that as the 1MDB scandal began to be exposed, Najib dismissed then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, who was leading the task force, removed then Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamed, and disbanded the task force.
Today, Najib, who was prime minister between 2009 and 2018, branded the allegation that he had instructed the disbanding of the task force as “a simplistic and baseless sound bite”, crafted to unfairly cast blame on him.
He said former Bank Negara Malaysia governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, a prosecution witness, had revealed that Apandi Ali, who took over as attorney-general from Gani, had told her that the task force was not needed and that the relevant agencies should continue their investigations independently.
Zeti was also a member of the task force together with then inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar.
Najib said the dissolution had no impact on the investigations into 1MDB as Bank Negara had already launched its own probe, which led to a RM15 million fine imposed on 1MDB in 2016.
At the same time, he said the Public Accounts Committee had continued its hearings, while other law enforcement agencies actively pursued their own inquiries.
“These facts decisively refute the baseless notion that the task force’s dissolution was intended to obstruct justice or investigations,” he added.
Najib said the changes in leadership at both MACC and the Attorney-General’s Chambers were part of an administrative reshuffling and had nothing to do with any directive or interference from him.
Najib also said he had intended to recommend that Gani be appointed as a Federal Court judge but the plan did not materialise.
He said Abu Kassim’s departure from MACC was also an administrative decision, and that the anti-graft agency’s investigations into 1MDB continued under the new leadership.
Najib is charged with 25 counts of money laundering and abuse of power over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to US$681 million (RM2.28 billion) deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
The hearing continues.