Auditor-General and PAC Chairman's decision not to pursue 1MDB scandal proves that they are compromised and unfit to protect the interest of Malaysians

Malaysians are aghast, but perhaps not surprised, that both the new Auditor-General, Tan Sri Madinah Mohamad and the Public Accounts Committee Chairman, Datuk Seri Hasan Arifin have decided against pursuing the 1MDB investigations and audit further.

This is despite the fact that the United States Department of Justice (US DOJ) had over the past one year, revealed new explosive evidence and details of how the billions of dollars of 1MDB funds have been misappropriated, stolen and laundered all around the world.

Most incriminatingly, the US DOJ suits detailed how more than US$732 million (RM3.1 billion) flowed in and out of the Prime Minister’s personal bank account between 2011 and 2014.  The specific dates and amounts of funds transferred, as well as the respective banks involved are listed in Table A on below.

Even the most partial observers would have to concede that there is a prima facie case to investigate the flow of funds, to determine the veracity of the allegations contained in the US DOJ report.  The investigators in the United States did not pluck these transactions out of the sky, but have meticulously corroborated all evidence with all the international banks across the world from global banks like Standard Chartered Bank to private banks like Falcon Bank of Switzerland.

None of the above transactions were investigated or were made available to the previous Auditor-General Report by the then Auditor-General, Tan Sri Ambrin Buang as well as the Public Accounts Committee Report tabled in Parliament in April 2016.

The Auditor-General then had reprimanded 1MDB for refusing to hand over its foreign bank account statements and transaction verifications despite multiple requests.  However, even without the above, there was sufficient damning evidence of abuse and mismanagement within 1MDB for the PAC to table its critical report last year. 

Now, with the scale of new explosive details of the scandal surfacing since the April 2016 Report, any God-fearing and responsible Auditor-General or PAC Chairman would have demanded a re-opening of their investigations.

While the PAC had a meeting yesterday to receive the latest Auditor-General’s Report, there was no discussion of pursuing the 1MDB investigations.  Instead Dato’ Seri Hasan Arifin unilaterally told the media that the Committee will not re-open the case.

On the other hand, Tan Sri Madinah Mohamad merely added her department would do so only if it receives instructions from the Cabinet.  Such instruction would never come of course, given the blatant conflict of interests involved with the Finance and Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak directly implicated in the massive scandal.

Their refusal to pursue the investigations only serves to entrench the rakyat’s perception that they are stooges installed by Dato’ Seri Najib Razak to protect the latter from the outrageous scandal.  After all, it has been exposed previously that Tan Sri Madinah is or was an UMNO Kepong Division member where her husband is the Division Chairman, Datuk Rizuan Abdul Hamid had openly expressed his willingness to “die for Najib”.  On the other hand, Dato’ Seri Hasan Arifin was installed as the PAC Chairman after the previous Chairman, Datuk Nur Jazlan was “promoted” to become a Deputy Minister.  Dato’ Seri Hasan had in his own words, rejected the need to summon Dato’ Seri Najib to the PAC because he has to “cari makan”.

These top officials have betrayed the interest of the rakyat and are traitors to their race, religion and nation.  If they have any iota of honour left in them, they should resign from their positions and let others who have the interest of Malaysians at heart take over these posts.

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Malaysians shamed as Attorney-General Tan Sri Apandi Ali gets schooled by the United States Department of Justice

The updated second asset seizure suit filed by the United States Department of Justice (US DOJ) under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative contained even more outrageous exposés on how 1MDB funds have been misappropriated to those who are in power as well as their associates.

Besides some of the juiciest scandalous details befitting tabloid headlines around the world, the DOJ also took pains to elaborate how the funds exceeding USD5.6 billion have been laundered by 1MDB officials, Jho Low and his associates.

The DOJ detailed how 1MDB forged financial statements, falsified audited financial statements, created multiple version of agreements for the very same transactions, colluded with foreign companies, lied to financial officers and authorities and outrageously pledged worthless securities as collateral to secure its US$975 million loan from the Deutsche Bank-led consortium.

All these evidential details – telephone conversations, email correspondences, financial statements, transaction documents – were clearly painstakingly gathered by the DOJ from all international banking institutions involved with 1MDB as well as other relevant witnesses around the world.

And yet, the first and only response from our Attorney-General, Tan Sri Apandi Ali to date has been to rue DOJ’s “insinuations that have been made against the prime minister of criminal wrongdoing”.

You are wrong, Mr Attorney-General.  The US DOJ suit did not mention or even highlight any specific wrongdoing by Dato’ Seri Najib Razak.  The US DOJ merely detailed how more than US$5 billion from 1MDB, an entity owned by the Malaysian government have been laundered around the world by a Low Taek Jho and his associates.

In the process, the US DOJ merely mentioned that some of the ultimate beneficiaries of the laundering exercise were Dato’ Seri Najib Razak, to the tune of US$732 million and his wife, who received a gift of a pink diamond necklace worth more than US$30 million.

Like Jho’s girlfriend, Miranda Kerr who received multi-million dollar diamond studded jewelry, or “friend”, Leonardo DiCaprio who received multi-million dollar worth of rare movie memorabilia and paintings, they may be oblivious to the fact that the items were purchased with laundered funds.

Perhaps the Prime Minister and his wife are equally innocent and all they need to do is to return the money or surrender the jewelry, just as Leonardo have done.  Hence, it is misguided for Tan Sri Apandi Ali to conclude the DOJ case as one against the Prime Minister.

The real question then is for Tan Sri Apandi Ali to investigate the money laundering exercise carried out by mastermind Jho Low and the abetting 1MDB officials.  The Attorney-General cannot deny the overwhelming prima facie evidence presented by the DOJ on the above.

In fact, the DOJ even presented how the above crimes have broken Malaysian laws:

942. Misappropriating public funds by a public official is a criminal offense under Malaysian law, as enumerated by the Penal Code of Malaysia, including but not limited to sections 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property), 405 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant or agent), 166 (Public servant disobeying a direction of the law, with intent to cause injury to any person (including a company)), 415 (cheating), 418 (cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may be thereby caused to a person whose interest the offender is bound to protect), and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property); and the Malaysian Anti- Corruption Act 2009, including sections 16, 17, and 23. Copies of these laws are set forth in Attachment B.

943. Bank fraud is a criminal offense under Malaysian law, as enumerated by the Penal Code of Malaysia, including but not limited to section 415 (cheating), 418 (cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may be thereby caused to a person whose interest the offender is bound to protect), and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property).

Malaysians are embarrassed by the fact that our top prosecuting officer had to be schooled by foreign jurisdictions on the laws of this country.

Instead of crying “frustration” that “the AG's Chambers was not informed or alerted by DOJ of this action”, Malaysians would like to know if the AG has bothered to even initiate requests for evidence from the US authorities since the DOJ filed their first asset seizure suit nearly a year ago?

Or is it a case for the AG to see no evil, hear no evil and hence speak no evil?

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