Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak (Photo: AFP/VNA)
Kuala Lumpur (VNA) – Credit cards belonging to Malaysia’s former PrimeMinister Najib Razak were used to spend over 3.3 million RM (800,000 USD) in asingle day at a luxury jeweller in Italy, a court in Kuala Lumpur has heardduring his trial.
According to Bernama, the Malaysian news agency, the spending spree took placeat De Grisogono jeweller via Najib’s Visa and Mastercard platinum credit cards.
Yeoh Eng Leong, a senior official from Malaysian lender AmBank said at ahearing in the case on July 15 the money was spent on August 8, 2014, but hedid not disclose what was bought.
In addition, the cards were also used to pay over 460,000 RM at a Chanelboutique in Hawaii and over 120,000 RM at a Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok.
Najib defended the spending, saying this expenditure is for a gift to a seniormember of the Italian government that has good relations with Malaysia.
"It is normal togive gifts to leaders of other governments," he said.
The current trial is the first of several that Najib is expected to face overthe government fund 1MDB. Najib was toppled from power in May last year, and isnow facing dozens of charges for corruption, misappropriation of funds andabuse of power linked to the 1MDB fund.
On Sept 20 last year, Najib was charged with 25corruption charges involving 2.28 billion RM of 1MDB money.
The 1MDB was set up by Najib in 2009 for socio-economic development. However,US and Malaysian investigators found some 4.5 billion USD was stolen, andaround 1 billion USD was sent to Najib’s different accounts.-VNA
VNA
