KUALA LUMPUR (March 4): An MACC officer investigating the RM2.6 billion 1MDB scandal told the High Court today that he did not know if the three princes the commission wanted to question in Riyadh had been present when a team went to Saudi Arabia in 2015 to record their statements as he lacked the means to identify them.

MACC officer Fikri Ab Rahim took the witness stand today to testify as he was part of the MACC team that went to Saudi Arabia in November 2015 to interview the members of the Saudi royalty.

However, Fikri said that when he got there, he was not able to correctly identify the three Saudi princes as two of them were nowhere to be seen and did not show their passports to the investigation team.

The three princes in question are Prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Majed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Prince Saud), Prince Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Prince Faisal) and Prince Turki bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Prince Turki).

Questioned by lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah whether the three princes were at the palace in Riyadh when the MACC took their statements, the officer said he did not know as the three princes were hard to identify.

Fikri told Judge Nazlan Mohd Ghazali that he had gone to Saudi Arabia between Nov 27 and 29 in 2015 together with former DPP Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad, MACC deputy chief commissioner Datuk Azam Baki, and officers Mohd Hafaz Nazar and Mohd Nasharudin Amir to investigate.

“The three of them could not be identified because we could not see their passports,” he admitted.

Fikri also said that although they could not get to record the statements of all three princes, the MACC team did manage to record a statement from Prince Saud’s agent and lawyer Abdullah Al Koman who had shown up on the prince’s behalf.

He said that Azam had managed to identify Prince Saud as he was shown his passport.

According to Fikri, MACC went to Riyadh to specifically ascertain if the four donation letters which former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak claimed to be from the Saudis, were in fact from them.  

“We did verify that the four letters were authentic and issued by Prince Saud,” Fikri said, adding that after they had taken the statement from Al-Koman, the officers were contented and did not seek a statement from the other two princes.

Fikri testified that the princes had diplomatic immunity and it was not proper procedure for officers to question them directly. As such, he said the MACC team could not probe further and had left Riyadh with only Al-Koman’s testimony.

Previously, his colleague Mohd Nasharuddin Amir had testified that on Nov 29, 2015, the MACC recorded a statement from Prince Saud at the palace of then Saudi ruler King Abdullah, in Riyadh.

But instead of meeting the prince, a legal representative whose name was Abdullah Al Koman had shown up on the prince’s behalf.

Nasharuddin also testified that Al Koman had signed the statement he had given to the MACC on behalf of the prince.

Najib faces seven charges of misappropriating RM42 million of funds belonging to former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd.

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