Najib mulled action against The Edge over 1MDB coverage: Ex-CFO

1MDB TRIAL | Then premier Najib Abdul Razak met 1MDB’s then chief financial officer to discuss action against The Edge over its reporting over the scandal at the sovereign wealth fund, the Kuala Lumpur High Court heard today.

Azmi Tahir, who was 1MDB’s CFO from 2012 to 2017, testified that he was directed by wanted businessperson Low Taek Jho (or Jho Low) to fly to a country in the Middle East to have the meeting with the then prime minister.

The 12th prosecution witness was giving oral evidence during today’s RM2.28 billion corruption trial against Najib (above).

During examination-in-chief by deputy public prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram, Azmi testified that Low contacted him to fly to the Middle Eastern nation (he could not remember whether it was Abu Dhabi or Dubai, whereby both are parts of the United Arab Emirates or UAE) in order to meet Najib over The Edge’s media coverage of the then unfolding 1MDB affair.

The witness also did not state which year the alleged visit took place regarding the 1MDB-linked media reports by the Malaysian-based business publication.

“The reason Jho Low asked me to go was he said there would be discussion with Najib on The Edge newspaper regarding 1MDB (news coverage), where the company (1MDB) was being attacked by The Edge over a series of articles which questioned our acquisition of power plants (allegedly part of the 1MDB affair), going IPO (initial public offering for 1MDB, which fell through), and so on,” Azmi said.

The witness claimed Low told him that the articles created an issue of something wrong at 1MDB and painted Najib as being responsible for it.

He claimed that Low also provided the details on which hotel and which date to fly to the Middle East country.

The witness said after having made photocopies of The Edge articles, he then flew to the Middle East country and went to the hotel where Najib was staying.

Azmi said that he met Najib’s then principal private secretary Azlin Alias at the hotel lobby, where he told the latter that he was there to meet “boss” in reference to Najib.

Then during a telephone call, Low told Azmi to go up to the upper floor where Najib's suite was, and he did.

Azmi said when he reached the suite, Najib’s officer there asked why he was there, and he introduced himself as from 1MDB and that he was there to meet Najib.

The witness said he was allowed into the suite and he waited for a while there as Najib had a function. Azmi claimed Najib later came to the suite and met him.

“When he (Najib) came back, I sat down with him and a few other officers. We had a short discussion about what I found. It (meeting) was not very long. I was told I could leave after that,” Azmi said.

When Sri Ram asked the witness about Najib’s attitude during the meeting at the Middle Eastern nation, Azmi revealed that the then premier was mulling on what action to take over The Edge’s reporting on 1MDB.

“He (Najib) was trying to come to a decision on whether to take action against The Edge over these attacks.

“I was there talking about 1MDB, not sure if there were other considerations. My being there was to talk about the attacks against 1MDB,” Azmi testified.

During the Najib administration in July 2015, the Home Ministry had suspended The Edge’s publishing permit for three months.

Najib meeting KPMG auditors was 'very significant'

Meanwhile during today’s proceedings, Azmi also testified that it was “very significant for then premier Najib to meet auditors KPMG over 1MDB’s alleged dubious US$2.3 billion overseas investment.

The witness claimed that this was because it was significant for Malaysia’s prime minister himself to meet auditors over the audit of 1MDB.

Azmi was referring to previous testimony heard in court about a meeting between Najib and KPMG officials at the then premier’s house on Dec 15, 2013.

KPMG was reported to still have refused to sign off on 1MDB’s 2013 financial statements despite having met with Najib. The auditor was later dropped and Deloitte was brought on board to sign off on the statements.

“Meeting the auditors was quite significant. It was very significant for the prime minister of the country to meet the auditors.

“I was grateful as there was a problem to be solved and he (Najib) agreed to meet them (KPMG),” Azmi said.

The witness was replying to a question from Sri Ram on whether Najib showed interests in the affairs of 1MDB.

Proceedings before trial judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah is set to resume on Dec 13.

Najib is on trial for four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving RM2.28 billion of 1MDB’s funds.

1MDB is fully owned by the Minister of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc).

Besides being former premier, the accused also used to be finance minister and chairperson of 1MDB’s board of advisers.

The prosecution contended that Low, on the behest of Najib, had acted with several other 1MDB personnel to misappropriate billions of ringgit of funds from the sovereign wealth fund, and via a circuitous and complex financial route to transfer part of the funds to the then premier’s account.

However, the defence team contended that Najib had no knowledge about wrongdoing at 1MDB, and that the whole affair was masterminded completely by Low and several other members of the sovereign wealth fund.