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KUALA LUMPUR (THE STAR / ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – A former bank official, along with AmBank Islamic and AMMB Holdings, successfully settled a lawsuit brought by former Prime Minister Najib Razak over allegations of mishandling his bank accounts.
High Court Judge Khadijah Idris, in allowing Ms. Joanna Yu and the two banks’ request, said on Monday (September 28) that Najib’s claim was untenable, scandalous, frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of the judicial process. .
In his ruling, the judge also noted that Najib initiated the lawsuit against Ms Yu and the two entities after he testified in Najib’s trial involving SRC International, a company that was previously a unit of the state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB.
Ms. Yu was the 54th prosecution witness to testify against Najib at the trial.
Ms. Yu was the former Relationship Manager who managed Najib’s accounts in the AmBank Group, while both AmBank Islamic and AMMB are part of the AmBank Group.
“This action by the plaintiff is not to seek damages, but for a collateral purpose to strengthen the plaintiff’s defense in the SRC case and thus an abuse of the judicial process,” Judge Khadijah said.
On Monday, the court also ordered Najib to pay RM30,000 (S $ 9,888) in costs to AmBank and AMMB Holdings, and RM25,000 in costs to Ms. Yu.
Lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who represents Najib, told the court on Monday that they will soon file an appeal against the decision.
Both Ms. Yu and Najib did not appear in court during the proceedings.
Najib has been convicted in the SRC International case.
On July 28, the Kuala Lumpur High Court sentenced Najib to 12 years in prison and fined him RM 210 million for embezzling RM 42 million in funds from SRC International. The funds were deposited into AmBank accounts.
Appeal against the conviction.
On December 9 of last year, Najib filed the lawsuit in the Superior Court registry and named AmBank, AMMB Holdings, and Ms. Yu as defendants.
According to the complaint brief, the plaintiff claimed that AmBank and Ms. Yu had been negligent in handling Najib’s bank accounts, with numbers ending in 694, 880, 898 and 906, by disclosing them to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Bajo.
Najib claimed that the defendants had unauthorized disclosure of their bank statements, credit and debit remittance transactions, and fund balances in account 694 to Low as a third party.
He claimed that the defendants did not engage with him to report Low’s actions with respect to said bank account and that the bank had facilitated the unauthorized third party to make money transfers between accounts 880, 898, and 906.
Najib claimed that the bank had kept him in the dark about the details of his own bank account statements and other related documents under Low’s instructions.
It claimed that Low, with the help of other unauthorized third parties, had carried out 20 transactions to regularize the accounts totaling RM12 million through various local and foreign remittances and that the accounts had been “flagged” by Bank Negara.
He claimed that the defendants did not report or obtain direct instructions from him despite the accounts being flagged.
Najib also claimed that he discovered the act committed by the defendants only during SRC International’s trial after the prosecution had disclosed the conversations between Ms. Yu and third parties.
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