Witness Salmah Daman Huri, vice president of Treasury Operation Department at Ambank (M) Berhad), is pictured at Kuala Lumpur High Court in Kuala Lumpur June 13, 2022. — Picture by Firdaus Latif
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KUALA LUMPUR, June 13 — Over RM45 million entered Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Ambank account in five transactions over a three-month period in 2014, according to documents a senior bank officer verified today at the former prime minister’s corruption trial.
Salmah Daman Huri, vice president of Treasury Operations Department at Ambank (M) Berhad, confirmed this while testifying as the 23rd prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of more than RM2 billion of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds.
She confirmed six transaction slips showing the transfer of these funds in British pounds totalling over ?8.7 million from an entity’s overseas accounts to an AmBank account only identified as “AmPrivate Banking-1MY” with the account number 2112022011880.
While she did not name the owner of this AmBank account as such an identity is not directly within the knowledge of the department where she worked at, this AmBank account number had previously been identified in Najib’s separate trial — over the misappropriation of RM42 million of SRC International Sdn Bhd’s funds — as belonging to Najib.
Salmah today confirmed five documents, which all showed transfers from Vista Equity International Partners through Amicorp Bank and Trust Ltd, Barbados via Standard Chartered Bank, London before it reached this same “AmPrivate Banking-1MY” account.
These are namely transfers of ?5.75 million on October 21, 2014, ?694,343.62 on November 24, 2014, ?2,216.01 on November 24, 2014, ?995,000 on December 8, 2014, and ?1,264,462.29 or ?1.264 million on December 19, 2014.
When these five transactions are totalled up, it would come up to ?8,706,021.92 or slightly more than ?8.7 million, which would be equivalent to RM45,837,485.70 or over RM45 million, based on the exchange rate at that time in 2014.
These foreign exchange rates are based on other banking documents that Salmah confirmed in court today.
On the first day of this 1MDB trial, the prosecution had said it would show that 1MDB funds had been transferred in multiple transactions to Najib’s accounts, namely US$20 million equivalent to RM60,629,839.43 or over RM60 million from the first phase, US$30 million equivalent to RM90,899,927.28 or over RM90 million (second phase), US$681 million equivalent to RM2,081,476,926 or over RM2 billion (third phase), and transactions in British pound that were equivalent to RM4,093,500 and RM45,837,485.70 or a combined total of RM49,930,985.70 million or over RM49 million (fourth phase).
The total of 1MDB funds that the prosecution had said it would prove had entered Najib’s accounts from all four phases would come up to a total of RM2,282,937,678.41 or over RM2.28 billion.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes this afternoon.
MORE TO COME