Datuk Seri Najib Razak is pictured leaving the Kuala Lumpur High Court November 10,2021. — Picture by Meira Zulyana
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 — A former CEO of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) today denied that he was a liar and that he was giving testimony in court against former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to avoid being prosecuted.
Mohd Hazem Abd Rahman, who was CEO of 1MDB from March 2013 to early January 2015, was testifying as the 10th prosecution witness in Najib’s criminal trial involving more than RM2 billion of funds allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB.
Najib’s lawyer Mardhiyah Mohamed Sirajkumar today launched a barrage of accusations against Hazem, saying “Based on all these answers you have given me these last couple of days, I put it to you that you are a liar.”
Hazem replied “I disagree” with a slight chuckle.
Mardhiyah then continued, pressing: “I put it to you, you seem to only remember whatever that implicates Datuk Seri Najib in your witness statement, including Jho Low’s purported access to Datuk Seri Najib. Yet whenever it comes to matters you were directly involved in, you seem to conveniently forget.”
But Hazem again said he disagreed.
Hazem also disagreed with Mardhiyah’s suggestion that his alleged failure to remember facts despite being in attendance or having heard matters first-hand was due to his intention of protecting himself from being charged in court.
While agreeing that he was part of the management of 1MDB which the prosecution had said was run like a “Chinese coffee shop in Petaling Street”, Hazem said he had “no comment” when Mardhiyah suggested that Hazem had committed offences under the Companies Act and the Penal Code by having operated the company in such a manner.
Mardhiyah suggested “I put it to you that is the reason why you are lying in court, to save yourselves”, to which Hazem disagreed.
Hazem also disagreed with Mardhiyah’s suggestions that he was implicating Najib as part of a purported deal to avoid both being prosecuted and involved in civil lawsuits by 1MDB, also disagreeing with Mardhiyah’s claim that 1MDB had filed a lawsuit against him and then dropped him from the lawsuit in order to have him come to court to testify against Najib.
At this point, High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah noted that Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had asked similar questions, with Mardhiyah agreeing but saying she wanted to ask Hazem these questions based on his answers in court this week.
Back in August, Hazem had disagreed with Shafee’s suggestion that he had made a deal to testify against Najib in the latter’s trial in exchange for not being sued or charged.
Among other things, Hazem had also disagreed to Mardhiyah’s suggestion that Low Taek Jho — better known as Jho Low — lacked direct access to Najib.
Hazem also disagreed with Mardhiyah’s claim that he was the “real mirror image” of Low.
On the first day of Najib’s 1MDB trial, the prosecution had said it would prove that Low was allegedly the “alter ego” and “mirror image” of Najib, and had also said it would establish facts that would result in an irresistible inference that both of them had acted as one at all material times.
Najib’s trial, involving four charges of power abuse and 21 charges of money-laundering, is set to resume tomorrow.
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