PUTRAJAYA, Nov 4 — Low Taek Jho was just a “messenger” who helped convey then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak‘s instructions over 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) affairs, the prosecution told the High Court today.
In Najib’s trial involving RM2 billion of 1MDB funds, the prosecution said evidence shows Low — better known as Jho Low — managed the former prime minister’s personal and financial matters, including handling his credit card problems abroad.
“For example, he was the one whom the accused called when he had trouble with his credit card overseas,” the prosecution said, adding that there were many other similar instances.
AmBank’s former relationship manager Joanna Yu, who testified earlier as the 41st prosecution witness, had described Low’s role in managing transactions in Najib’s private AmIslamic bank accounts.
Yu had told the court that Low personally alerted her whenever funds were expected to enter Najib’s accounts or when Najib’s credit card payments failed to go through.
During her testimony, the court was shown BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) text messages between Low and Yu, including one instance when Najib urgently sought help to verify RM3.3 million in credit card transactions for jewellery in Italy, and another involving a US$100,000 purchase in Hawaii.
The prosecution argued that Low, Najib’s late principal private secretary Datuk Azlin Alias, 1MDB’s former deputy chief financial officer Terence Geh, 1MDB’s former chief investment officer Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil and other fugitives had all acted as Najib’s “messengers.”
It said 1MDB officials and other prosecution witnesses had acted based on instructions from these individuals because they believed the directions came from Najib himself.
According to the prosecution, Najib’s silence despite being aware of these actions strongly supports the claim that he had authorised them.
It highlighted that these witnesses had initially sought confirmation from Najib about instructions given by Low or Azlin and, after receiving repeated affirmation, later stopped verifying each one because there was a “clear pattern” that all instructions aligned with Najib’s wishes.
The prosecution maintained that this pattern shows Najib had empowered the intermediaries to act on his behalf and urged the High Court to convict him on all 25 charges in the 1MDB case.
Lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah is pictured at the Federal Court in Putrajaya on January 6, 2025. — Picture by Firdaus Latif
Earlier, Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah argued that Low should be “at the very top in the hierarchy of criminals” in the 1MDB scandal.
He accused the authorities of “selective prosecution,” claiming Najib’s trial was politically motivated. “My client is being sought so that he is annihilated politically so that he will never recover politically,” he said.
While the prosecution said Najib had received more than RM2 billion of 1MDB’s money in his private accounts, the former prime minister has maintained that the funds were donations from Saudi Arabia and its late ruler King Abdullah.
Shafee cited King Salman’s 2017 visit to Malaysia as evidence supporting the Saudi donation claim.
“First, would King Salman have taken the invitation to visit Malaysia, if we have defamed his late brother’s name — King Abdullah — as having donated this sum of money which became the talk of not just the town, but the whole world?” he said.
He also argued there was “nothing sinister” in Najib’s admission that he did not personally inform the Saudis of his account number, suggesting that Low may have done so instead.
Shafee said Najib had trusted Low because he had arranged a meeting with King Abdullah and informed Najib in advance of receiving Saudi Arabia’s highest title.
The defence contended that Najib’s explanation was neither an “afterthought” nor a “bare denial” and urged the court to discharge and acquit him.
After more than 300 hearing days since September 2018, High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah is expected to deliver his verdict on December 26.
