CIMB Islamic Bank chief executive officer Badlisyah Abdul Ghani has admitted making some mistakes in his analysis of documents detailing the alleged transfer of nearly US$700 million to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's personal accounts.
"I would also like to acknowledge that I had made an error in my post with regard to my analysis of the various Swift codes.
"The mistakes were correctly pointed out by a report in Malaysiakini on the matter, and I have also made the correction on my Facebook page," said Badlisyah in a press release.
Badalisyah added that the views expressed on the matter were strictly his personal views which does not represent anyone else or any organisation.
"They were meant for private consumption among a group of friends."
Initially, Badalisyah had claimed that the Wall Street Journal " fell " for a fraudulent Swift message document in making the allegation against Najib.
He had taken issue with what he claimed to be discrepancy in the sender's address as well as the Swift Code of the bank in which the funds were sent from.
Upon checks by Malaysiakini , it was established that most of Badalisyah's forensic work was inaccurate.
However, Badlisyah correctly pointed out that the particular Wells Fargo bank branch should have a standard Swift Code of "PNBPUS3NNYC" instead of "PNBPUS3NANYC" as listed on the documents released by WSJ.
Checks showed that the "PNBPUS3NANYC" Swift Code was used by its predecessor, Wachovia Bank, which was subsequently taken over by Wells Fargo Bank in 2008.
Further checks showed the discrepancy, specifically on the additional "A" on the ninth character of the Swift Code in the WSJ document, merely denotes the logical terminal and has no bearing on the bank identity.
After being challenged by Najib's supporters, the WSJ released nine documents yesterday to back their claim that nearly US$700 million made its way into his personal accounts.
Badalisyah made a Facebook post later this evening, maintaining that the documents were fraudulent.
Top banker claims WSJ fell for 'fraud' bank docs
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