PUTRAJAYA, Feb 18 — The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) 2015 trip to Saudi Arabia was not to get preplanned and completed statements by an alleged Saudi prince and Low Taek Jho’s associate Eric Tan for investigations on RM2.6 billion which entered Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts, the High Court heard.
Fikri Ab Rahim, one of four MACC officers who went on the 2015 Saudi trip, denied that the investigators had just “cut and pasted” the completed statements from the purported Saudi prince and Tan.
Fikri said this while testifying as the eighth defence witness in Najib’s trial, where over RM2 billion of 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) funds were alleged to have entered the former prime minister’s accounts.
The two individuals whom the MACC met in Saudi Arabia were allegedly Prince Saud Abdulaziz Majid Al Saud who purportedly promised to give millions of US dollars as “gifts” to Najib through four “donation” letters including via Tanore Finance Corporation, and Tan who owned Tanore Finance Corporation.
In reply to deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib’s suggestion that he had already known that MACC was only going to Saudi Arabia to take the completed statements for the alleged Prince Saud and Tan even before he flew there, Fikri said: “Disagree.”
Akram said this was because MACC investigators had taken a very short time to record these two statements, namely just 20 minutes from the alleged Saudi prince through his lawyer and representative Mohamad Abdullah Al-Koman, and just 25 minutes from Tan.
But Fikri instead said that MACC officer Datuk Mohd Hafaz Nazar who recorded the two men’s statements was “capable”.
Pressed by Akram on whether there was already a plan for MACC to just “cut and paste” and convert the alleged pre-prepared statements into MACC’s format to be brought back to Malaysia, Fikri again disagreed.
Akram: Why I said you did that, is because the investigation was on a sitting PM, that’s why everything has been pre-planned. You just go there and take and come back.
Fikri: Disagree.
Akram: And because of your contribution, you were promoted quickly.
Fikri: Disagree.
Previously, Fikri had said MACC’s investigations in 2015 were on where the RM2.6 billion which entered then prime minister Najib’s bank accounts had come from, and if the four donation letters purportedly from Prince Saud were genuine, and if Prince Saud did donate money to Najib.
Later when asked by Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah if he had planned together with the MACC team to get pre-planned statements in Saudi Arabia and if that was why he was promoted quickly, Fikri disagreed.
Fikri said that he only had a fast promotion from Grade 41 to Grade 51, and that he was already a Grade 51 officer in MACC at the time of the Saudi trip in 2015, and that it was only in 2017 that he was promoted to Jusa C.
Fikri said his promotion was determined by MACC and by its then MACC chief Tan Sri Abu Kassim Mohamed (who was chief until August 1, 2016), denying that Najib had anything to do with his promotion and saying that investigations was not completed in 2015.
“The investigations have not been completed and I didn’t concur to that investigation, so I don’t see Datuk Seri Najib playing a role in my promotion,” he said, insisting that it was Abu Kassim who had promoted him.
Among other things, Fikri also said he was unsure if it was the MACC or the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) who had arranged the five-man team (including four MACC officers and one AGC representative) to Saudi Arabia in 2015 for the investigations.
While acknowledging that the complaint to MACC which sparked investigations had already stated that Najib had in 2013 received US$681 million from Tanore and while knowing that Tan was Tanore’s owner, Fikri confirmed that both he and then investigations chief Tan Sri Azam Baki did not give orders for Tan to produce documents for his statement in Saudi.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes this afternoon.
