KINIGUIDE | Top lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today claimed trial to four charges under Section 4(1)(a) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001.

Malaysiakini breaks down the case to help you better understand what the charges mean.

What are the charges about?

The charges revolve around Shafee allegedly receiving two separate payments totalling RM9.5 million from then prime minister Najib Abdul Razak between 2013 and 2014.

Specifically, Shafee was alleged to have received two cheques from Najib, one amounting to RM4.3 million on Sept 13, 2013, and another for RM5.2 million on Feb 17, 2014.

What is the prosecution alleging against Shafee?

According to the prosecution, the problem lies with the source of Najib's funds allegedly coming from "proceeds of unlawful activity".

Based on public records, Najib paid Shafee from an account that ends with "906".

This was the same account that was shown in a chart held up by then attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali at a press conference in 2016.

The chart showed state-owned SRC International money flowing into three separate accounts held by Najib, namely the accounts ending with "906", "880" and "898".

According to that chart, at least RM28 million originating from SRC International ended up in account 906 after flowing through intermediaries. Despite this, Apandi cleared Najib of wrongdoing.

However, in the context of Shafee's case, the SRC International transactions happened between July and August 2014, several months after the lawyer was paid.

Najib had a fourth account, ending "694", which allegedly received the bulk of funds originating from 1MDB, including the now infamous "RM2.6 billion".

Malaysiakini had detailed some of the political recipients from this account at its microsite: "Nicked from 1MDB or donation? Political hands in the cookie jar".

The 1MDB transactions largely took place between 2011 to 2013. There is no public record on whether Najib transferred those funds to his other accounts.

What are the specifics of the charges?

There may be some confusion here as Shafee was charged under two different versions of the same law, namely Act 613.

Act 613 was initially known as the Anti-Money Laundering Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 (AMLATF) but after an amendment was gazetted in September 2014, it became known as the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLATFPUAA).

Shafee's alleged money laundering offence in relation to the RM4.3 million and RM5.2 million payments happened before September 2014. Therefore, he was charged under Section 4(1)(a) AMLATF, the earlier version of the law.

There were two charges under this initial version, one for each payment Shafee received from Najib.

Section 4(1)(a) of the AMLATF provides a fine of up to RM5 million or a jail term of up to five years or both.

The remaining two charges, also one for each payment, was done under the updated version of Section 4(1)(a) of AMLAFTFPUAA.

The updated Section 4(1)(a), provides for mandatory imprisonment of up to 15 years and a fine of not less than five times the value of proceeds received from unlawful activities and imprisonment or RM5 million, whichever higher, and imprisonment of up to 15 years.

These two charges claimed Shafee, in 2015, "engaged in a transaction that involves proceeds of unlawful activity" by making an incorrect income tax return through omission of the RM4.3 million and RM5.2 million payments he received for the financial year 2013 and 2014 respectively.



What's Shafee's side of the story?

Shafee had, in a press statement on Sept 8, addressed the RM9.5 million payment he received from Najib.

At that time, he was responding to a separate case involving PKR president Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar had taken his Sodomy II conviction to court on grounds that he did not receive a fair trial.

Anwar argued that this was because Shafee, while acting as an external prosecutor against him in the Sodomy II case, had taken payment from Najib, who is his political adversary.

Shafee denied that the RM9.5 million payment was for prosecuting Anwar, stating that they were legal fees for several cases in which he represented Umno.

He also stressed that he did not know the source of Najib's funds.

An excerpt of that statement is as follows:

"Sometime on or about September 2013 I chanced a meeting with Najib in the Prime Minister’s Office over various matters and in that meeting, I had the occasion to raise with him the question of my needing to be paid for my services thus far for Umno and BN as at that time I was in need of money to purchase a property from a friend who desperately needed to dispose of that property in order to purchase a new one for his family.

"Najib learned for the first time that I had not been paid by Umno for all these years since the time of Mahathir Mohamad and he inquired from me what would be the fees that had been accumulated over the years since early 1990s.

"I told him the total fees would be in the region of not less than RM20 million but I was not asking for all that. I told him that I would be happy if he could settle about RM11 million worth of legal work in 46 election petition files, the subject matter of the years in 2004 and 2006.

"Najib however, agreed to pay RM9.5 Million as complete settlement of the legal fees of the 46 election petition matters but he had asked me to rationalise the paperwork later. I agreed to this arrangement.

"Here, I must stress that I was made to understand that Najib was made responsible for handing the party's funds as this was a normal party practice. I had at that time absolutely no knowledge of the source of the payments to me by Najib".

Who makes up the legal teams?

The prosecution will be led by former Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram, who was roped in by the Attorney-General Chamber's on a pro bono basis last month to help prepare charges on cases related to the 1MDB scandal.

Gopal's team comprises deputy public prosecutors Kamal Baharin Omar, Ahmad Akram Gharib and Afzainizam Abdul Aziz.

Shafee is represented by counsels Harvinder Singh, Chetan Jethwani, Hasnal Rezua Merican, Sarah Abishegan, Rahmat Hazlan and Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee. Farhan is Shafee's son.

This instalment of KiniGuide is compiled by NIGEL AW.