Zeti said this while testifying as the 46th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial, where the accused faces 25 charges over RM2.28 billion of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds that were said to have entered Najib’s private bank accounts.

Zeti said she asked Cheah to direct all future communications regarding such matters to the BNM deputy governor, who was in charge of overseeing financial surveillance and supervision of Malaysia’s financial system.

Cheah had previously on October 4, 2022, told the High Court that he had followed AmBank’s chairman’s instruction and went to Najib’s house in early 2011 to help the latter with the bank account opening documents, where Najib claimed that there will be US$100 million donation coming in from Saudi Arabia government for him for Islamic activities.

Cheah had at that time told the court that he had then personally met with Zeti in order to notify her regarding Najib’s opening of the account and the latter’s expectation to receive US$100 million from Saudi Arabia.

Najib’s lawyers have been trying to use four letters by a purported Saudi prince to claim that the RM2.28 billion that entered his personal bank accounts were all donations.

The four letters addressed to Najib are dated February 1, 2011, with a purported promise of a gift of US$100 million, followed by a November 1, 2011 letter promising a gift of US$375 million, a March 1, 2013 letter promising a gift of US$800 million and a June 1, 2014 letter promising £50 million.

The four letters from the purported Saudi royalty had contents that were almost identical except for certain details including the amount and mention of specific bank accounts in the second and third letter, with the first letter signed off by “Saud Abdulaziz AL-Saud”, the second letter and fourth letter signed off by “HRH Prince Saud Abdulaziz Al-Saud”, while the third letter was signed off by “Saud Abdulaziz Al Saud”.

All four letters were careful to say that the donation of hundreds of millions of US dollars and millions of pounds should not be seen as an act of corruption.

But Zeti said she was never shown the four letters purportedly promising huge sums of donation to Najib at the time the money went into his accounts.

Six weeks after Cheah informed her of the opening of Najib’s account, Zeti said Cheah had in a March 22, 2011 letter to then BNM deputy governor Tan Sri Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus, adding that Cheah had attached the purported first donation letter to Shamsiah.

Zeti today said this letter was not brought to her attention then.

As for the second, third and fourth purported donation letters, Zeti said she had never seen these letters until after these documents were discovered during a joint raid on AmBank by BNM and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on July 6, 2015.

Zeti stressed that these three remaining donation letters seized in the 2015 raid “had never been disclosed to BNM”, saying: “Neither AmBank nor Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak had forwarded these letters to BNM.”

But looking at all four purported donation letters, Zeti said these are just “letters of intention and letters of promise”, as they did not provide any details such as how much would be transferred through which particular account.

“These were letters of intent and letters of promise, it did not provide any details on an actual transaction of transmitting any funds and therefore we would rely on the commercial bank concerned to make the assessment because they would be receiving the funds and are required to do the due diligence on the payee, the purpose and so on. And if there were something irregular, it should be reported to the central bank,” she said.

The prosecution had in December 2022 insisted that Najib will not be able to use these four letters to defend himself over the RM2.28 billion as other courts had found them to be a fabrication.

Najib’s 1MDB trial before Judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes on August 14.  MALAY MAIL