Syed Omar Al-Saggaf said Najib informed him of this after speaking to King Abdullah during a private meeting sometime in January 2010.
“He looked excited when he approached me (after his meeting with the Saudi king ended),” he said, when questioned about the meeting he attended.
Syed Omar said others who attended the meeting with King Abdullah were former foreign minister Anifah Aman and former religious minister Jamil Khir Baharom.
Deputy public prosecutor Kamal Baharin Omar then asked Syed Omar whether he had personally heard from King Abdullah about the “financial assistance”. The witness replied he had not as he had stood far away from the ruler during the meeting.
Najib is standing trial on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering over funds amounting to RM2.28 billion which were deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
1MDB seeks to set aside subpoena against company secretary
1MDB company secretary Saiful Nizam Yasin was initially scheduled to testify as a defence witness today.
However, lawyer Raphael Kok, who is holding a watching brief for 1MDB, told the court that he is seeking to set aside the subpoena against Saiful.
Kok said Najib’s legal team wanted Saiful to produce certain company documents dated from 2018 to 2024, which he claimed were privileged documents.
Fellow deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib also told the court that evidence from Saiful is not relevant to Najib’s money laundering and abuse of power charges.
Najib’s lawyer, Shafee Abdullah, had also demanded that the prosecution produce statements recorded from witnesses so that they could decide whether to call a particular witness.
In response, the prosecution said the statements were privileged and would not be handed over.
The court will hear 1MDB’s bid to set aside the subpoena for Saiful on Feb 14.
Earlier today, EPF officer T Gunasekaran told the court that 1MDB had between 2009 and 2018 paid the employer’s statutory contribution for two of its former CEOs — Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi and Hazem Abd Rahman — as well as ex-chief financial officer Azmi Tahir and former general counsel Jasmine Loo.
However, Gunasekaran told the court that he could not confirm whether the contributions they received were paid at the rate of 13% as required by law or a higher amount.
The hearing will continue on Feb 12 before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah.