R Rajagopal, formerly from the Bukit Aman commercial crime investigation department, said that he was prevented from doing so by Najib’s lawyers.
“The lawyers said that he (Najib) had been charged in court,” the witness said.
Najib was charged on July 4, 2018 for criminal breach of trust over RM42 million in funds belonging to SRC International. He was convicted and is presently serving a jail term.
In September of the same year he was slapped with 25 counts of money laundering and abuse of power over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
Testifying in the trial over the second set of charges, Rajagopal also said that the statement taken from former 1MDB executive director Tang Keng Chee (also known as Casey Tang) was incomplete as more information was needed from him.
However, he said the authorities were unable to locate Tang after 2018, prompting Bukit Aman to file charges against him and several others in absentia. Arrest warrants were also taken out against them.
“We are still unable to locate Casey,” Rajagopal added.
Tang’s statement – recorded by Rajagopal in Bangkok nine years ago – was tendered in court today.
Witness confronted ex-CEO over use of Perdana funds
Another witness, former Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd managing director Dr Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman, also continued his testimony today.
He told the court he confronted Ung Su Ling, then CEO of Yayasan Rakyat 1Malaysia (YR1M), and Dennis See, its project manager at the time, over the transfer of funds belonging to Ihsan Perdana into Najib’s accounts.
Shamsul said Ung and See only said the transfers were effected based on instructions from the “higher ups” without disclosing who they were.
Asked by deputy public prosecutor Kamal Baharin Omar whether he agreed Ihsan Perdana’s account had been misused, Shamsul answered in the affirmative.
The witness also agreed that he did not lodge any police reports over threats allegedly made by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers in the course of investigations.
“They agreed to withdraw what they had said,” Shamsul said, referring to allegations that he had been pressured to admit that Najib knew the source of the funds which entered his accounts.
Shamsul also agreed that he did not make any mention of these threats during his testimony in the SRC International case.
The hearing continues on March 12 before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah.