6 CHARGES, RM6 BILLION
They will answer 6 charges of criminal breach of trust
DATUK Seri Najib Razak and ex-Treasury sec-Abdullah gen Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar are expected to jointly face at least six CBT charges involving RM6 billion. Four are linked to 1MDB’s dealings with IPIC, while the other two are related to the ECRL and a pipeline project linked to SSER.
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FORMER prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and former Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah will answer six charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT) from the same dock today.
Four of the charges are expected to be linked to 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s dealings with Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC), involving about RM4.7 billion.
In what could be another shocking revelation, the court today is also expected to hear how Najib, who was also finance minister, and Irwan allegedly committed CBT by abusing funds linked to the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project, particularly involving approvals.
They are also expected to answer charges of CBT involving monies traced to the Multi-Product Pipeline and Trans-Sabah Gas Pipeline projects. Both projects were approved by the cabinet on July 27, 2016.
The projects were handled by Suria Strategic Energy Resources Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned unit of Minister of Finance Inc.
SSER was set up on May 19, 2016, to undertake the two projects.
The project came under the spotlight again in July when Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng revealed that the gas line projects, totalling RM9.4 billion, where 88 per cent of the amount had been drawn down, was only 13 per cent completed.
They were among those said to have been “kept hidden” in red files, away from the scrutiny of most officials in the Treasury.
The CBT charges linked to ECRL and the pipeline projects that Najib and Irwan are expected to formally answer for at 9am today, involve more than RM1 billion.
Yesterday, the Malaysian AntiCorruption Commission (MACC), in a statement, said it had the nod of the Attorney-General’s Chambers (A-GC) to charge both of them together under Section 409 of the Penal Code for CBT, involving the government’s monies.
The 1MDB-IPIC case that prosecutors are levelling against them involves 1MDB’s dealings with IPIC, in particular, the circumstances surrounding the Treasury’s authorisation of settlement payments by the former to the latter, that was done without the cabinet’s sanction.
Putrajaya had, on April 24 last year, entered into a settlement agreement with IPIC, where it agreed to pay back the US$1.2 billion it owed to IPIC for 1MDB’s defaulted bond payment in 2016 that was guaranteed by IPIC in 2012 for the acquisition of two power plants.
The agreement included the Finance Ministry giving an undertaking that 1MDB would fulfil all future payments of interest and principal sums related to the bonds.
The commission yesterday called in Najib one last time before he is charged with the alleged offences, before releasing him after a three-hour session.
Irwan wasn’t so lucky. He was arrested soon after arriving at the commission’s headquarters here in his black Perodua Myvi.
He spent the night at the MACC headquarters’ lock-up and will join his former boss in the dock at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court today.
The Sessions Court today will also simultaneously, in a different courtroom at 9am, hear charges of CBT levelled against former Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation chief Datuk Hasanah Abdul Hamid.
The offence she allegedly committed is a breach of Section 409 of the Penal Code, involving government monies.