'Jho Low made my life a living hell'
Published on: Wednesday, February 14, 2024
By:
FMT, V Anbalagan
Former 1MDB lawyer Jasmine Loo said Jho Low sent her about US$2,500 once every eight or nine months for living expenses when she lived in Bangkok.
Kuala Lumpur: Former 1MDB lawyer Jasmine Loo told the High Court today that fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, had made her life a “living hell”.
At Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial, Loo said she lived in Bangkok for five years and feared for her life.
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“Low, through a stranger, sent me about US$2,500 once every eight or nine months for living expenses.
“Life was deplorable because of Low, who was bent on making my life a living hell,” she said when answering a question from deputy public prosecutor Deepa Nair Thevaharan.
Loo said she left the country before the May 2018 general election, when Barisan Nasional led by Najib was ousted from power.
“Low instructed me to get out of the country and promised to resolve things and said he needed some time. But he swore my life would have a terrible end if I returned to Malaysia,” she added.
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Loo also said she never had the intention of fleeing to Bangkok but was finding a safe passage home.
“I was always fearful for my safety when in Bangkok after seeing what happened to Xavier Justo. So I complied with Low’s instruction,” she said.
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Loo, a protected witness, said she returned to Malaysia last year and received no threat to her life.
She added that she sought legal advice from her lawyers in 2021 and later sent a letter to the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
Earlier, in her witness statement, she said Low had instructed a business associate to prepare a letter, purportedly from Prince Saud, saying that a donation from an Arab royal family had been deposited into Najib’s accounts.
Loo said Low had asked the late Kee Kok Thiam to prepare the document.
Kee was investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission for allegedly receiving funds swindled from 1MDB and SRC International.
He disappeared in 2018 but reappeared at Terminal 2, KLIA on May 3, 2023. However, he died shortly after, on May 29.
Loo said she met Low in early 2015 in a room at the Business Centre Hotel in Mayfair, London, where the instructions for the letter were given.
“I saw Kee, Shamsul (Anwar Sulaiman) and Dennis See in the room. Shamsul was asking what the ‘way out’ was for the money that entered into Najib’s accounts,” she said.
Shamsul, the Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd managing director, was a prosecution witness in the SRC International case, which saw Najib being convicted and sentenced, while See was project director at Yayasan Rakyat 1Malaysia, which was linked to Ihsan Perdana.
Loo said Shamsul spoke about how the public was discussing the 1MDB money being funnelled into Najib’s accounts.
“Low then instructed Kee to prepare a letter purportedly from Prince Saud (saying) that the money was a donation from the Arab royal family,” she said.
In his opening statement on Aug 28, 2019, the late Gopal Sri Ram, the lead prosecutor in the case at the time, said that after news of the 1MDB scandal broke in early July 2015, Najib and “his mirror image, Jho Low” took steps to cover their tracks.
“Sham documents were produced to pretend (that) a donation (had been received) from an Arab prince. Among these were letters and four cheques, each for a sum of US$25 million, purportedly written out by a person said to be the Arab donor,” he said.
Najib is facing 25 charges of money laundering and abuse of power over alleged 1MDB funds in his AmBank accounts.
The hearing before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah has been adjourned to Friday.
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