KUALA LUMPUR: The prosecution in Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial urged the High Court today to give the former prime minister a stern warning for “launching attacks” against prosecution witness Zeti Akhtar Aziz.
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Ad hoc prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram told trial Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah that the former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor had been listed as one of the prosecution’s witnesses.
“We take strong exception to this. And the accused’s statements on Facebook have necessitated her (Zeti) to reply.
“We had served the defence the list of witnesses in August 2019, and the accused knew that she would be called as a witness,” Sri Ram said, urging the court to warn Najib not to “attack” Zeti any further.
Najib’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, told the court the defence wanted to respond to the matter accordingly.
“I have only received this notice by the prosecution this morning. I would like to submit to the law regarding this matter,” he said, and urged the court to reserve it for another day.
Sequerah responded by saying he will hear submissions from both sides on Thursday.
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Recently, the MalaysiaToday portal, run by blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, claimed that Zeti’s family members, her husband and two sons, had received over RM100 million in funds from businessman Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, the mastermind behind the 1MDB scandal.
According to the post, Zeti’s family members allegedly executed a statutory declaration (SD) in which they admitted receiving millions of ringgit in Singapore bank accounts, with the money coming from a company linked to Low.
Najib urged Zeti to speak up against the allegations, citing that she came out with a statement in May 2018 to declare that she was unaware of the existence of funds or transactions in his bank accounts.
Najib claimed he was surprised by the statement, as Zeti was the one who had advised him to open an account under his own name.
“How could a BNM governor not know about billions of foreign funds entering the account of a prime minister, when every major transaction from abroad requires BNM’s approval?” he said.
In a statement, Zeti denied the allegations and said she would not be able to make any further comments as she was a potential witness in Najib’s 1MDB trial.- FMT