KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): The High Court here heard that former 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) CEO Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi was instructed to leave the country by former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak's office to avoid a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing in Parliament in 2015.
Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, 49, said the then 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy told him that the PMO had instructed him to travel overseas to avoid the first PAC meeting.
Shahrol Azral was appointed as the 1MDB CEO in 2009 and ordered to move to the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) on March 15,2013.
The ninth prosecution witness was replying to questions during the examination-in-chief by lead prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram on the 16th day of Najib's 1MDB trial on Tuesday (Oct 1).
Sri Ram: Did you travel overseas?
Shahrol Azral: I flew to Singapore for one day.
Sri Ram: So, you flew to Singapore to avoid the meeting?
Shahrol Azral: That was what he (Arul Kanda) told me to do.
To face the subsequent PAC hearings, the witness said he was coached by fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho or Jho Low, who also arranged for him to meet with Barisan National members within the PAC before he was actually questioned by the committee.
The witness said that prior to the PAC hearing in 2015, a meeting was held at Datuk Seri Ahmad Farid Ridzuan's house in Sri Hartamas.
Ahmad Farid was in charge of Najib’s image branding at that time.
He said among the Barisan members in the PAC he met was Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan.
"I was given talking points by Jho Low on the information to be covered during the PAC meeting. He had also arranged for me to meet with one or two Barisan members of the PAC before the actual meeting.
"I met Rahman Dahlan, who was a member of the committee at the time and we talked about the kind of questions the PAC would be asking," he said.
Sri Ram then asked if the questions discussed with Abdul Rahman were actually the ones asked when he finally faced the PAC, to which the witness replied: "Approximately, yes".
Sri Ram: Actually, what was the purpose of the meeting?
Shahrol Azral: The meeting prior to the PAC hearing was to prepare me for the kind of questions and the post-hearing meeting was to discuss what the report was going to contain.
He said that during the meeting at Ahmad Farid's house, he (witness) was told that Najib was being politically attacked over the 1MDB scandal and he was instructed to downplay any role the former premier had in 1MDB.
Najib, 66, faces four charges of using his position to obtain bribes totalling RM2.3bil from the 1MDB funds and 21 charges of money laundering involving the same amount.
The Pekan MP allegedly committed the four offences at the AmIslamic Bank Berhad branch in Jalan Raja Chulan, Bukit Ceylon, here between Feb 24,2011 and Dec 19,2014, and the money laundering offences between March 22 and Aug 30,2013, at the same place.
The hearing before Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah continues on Monday (Oct 7). - Bernama
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