KUALA LUMPUR: Former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has hit back at an article quoting an unnamed investigator claiming that the signature in the documents provided were not that of Prince Abdulaziz Al-Saud.
Najib said the article, which alleged that all donation-related letters were not signed by the Saudi Prince himself but by someone claiming to be his assistant, seemed to portray him in a bad light.
“Those who do not give it deep thought will be quick to assume that I am trying to deceive the people.
“However, it’s important to note that all the letters received by the bank and myself had the official letterhead of Prince Abdulaziz Al-Saud and the same signatures,” he wrote in a Facebook post today
Najib also questioned why some important information about the transfer, such as the banking transactions and the accounts they were transferred from were not mentioned in the article.
Checks on the bank transaction slip posted in his Facebook account showed that the transfer of funds were made in two payments for 2011 from Saudi Arabia Ministry of Finance and Prince Faisal bin Turkey bin Al-Saud’s account in Saudi Arabia.
Najib said at the time of the post, he could not confirm what the investigator had said about the signature, but from his understanding, it was common in business for employees to be given the authority to sign official letters or documents on behalf of their employers.
He said all the transfers made and received from them have never been questioned by Bank Negara Malaysia, the receiving bank.
“The article also chose not to state the fact that I had returned the RM2.6 billion to Tanore Finance Corporation several months after receiving it, and this too is reflected in the bank document which I shared last week.
“This return of the RM2.6b is also acknowledged and mentioned by the Wall Street Journal in the book ‘The Billion Dollar Whale’.
“This proves that I did not steal or store billions of Ringgit for my personal use. Neither am I a rogue or thief as accused by various parties,” Najib wrote, adding that despite the confirmation by WSJ in the book, PH’s leaders and investigators had chosen not disclose it.
Najib said that in June 2011 both Prince Abdulaziz and Prince Faisal had attended his daughter’s engagement ceremony at Seri Perdana where he thanked them for the donations on behalf of King Abdullah.
Together with the post, Najib had attached a photopraph of Prince Faisal and Prince Abdulaziz shaking hands with his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor supposedly taken during his daughter’s engagement.