JUL282016
By pro-Najib bloggers’ admission, everyone including the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was caught off guard with the press conference held by the U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and US Department of Justice, exposing that billions of US dollars were indeed “stolen” from 1MDB – a fund set up and chaired by Najib Razak himself since 2009.
As chaos erupted in the Prime Minister Office, Najib’s advisers were summoned for meetings and brainstorming on the best damage control money can buy. They couldn’t find one because the A.G. Lynch was beyond their control, let alone US DOJ or FBI. Of course, PM Najib was extremely furious, but nothing beats Rosmah Mansor who almost fainted.
Not only Rosmah’s son (with her first husband), Riza Aziz, couldn’t return to America temporarily while the US DOJ is hot on his tail, some US$1 billion worth of assets – hotels; luxury real estate in Manhattan, Beverly Hills and London; fine art; a private jet and even the highly successful 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street” – vaporised into thin air.
Sure, those were acquired with allegedly stolen money originated from 1MDB. Still, the “First Family” had put in considerable amount of time and resources into planning what eventually turned out to be the biggest theft of the century. Hey, we should give credit where credit is due (*grin*), right? In haste, the “First Family”, still fabulously mad, decided to take revenge.
Deputy UMNO Youth Leader, Khairul Azwan Harun, was sent to make a local police report against the former Governor of Malaysia’s Central Bank Zeti Akhtar Aziz, former Attorney-General of Malaysia Abdul Gani Patail and the outgoing head of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Abu Kassim Mohamed.
Through the police report, the “First Family” was essentially crying, whining and bitching about the three individuals of providing confidential information to foreign agencies, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), without authorisation. The report also insists that the three individuals named were conspiring to topple Najib and the democratically-elected Malaysian government.
The primary issue that is causing pro-Najib bloggers, politicians and supporters beating their chests and screaming until foaming on the mouth is this – the Government of the United States should have first checked with the Government of Malaysia (read: Najib Razak) whether the complaint is legitimate before taking action (of telling all and sundry about Najib’s involvement).
In other words, A.G. Lynch and DOJ should have called the Prime Minister Najib Razak Office and asked – “Hey Mr. Prime Minister, we received stacks of evidence that your stepson Riza Aziz and your friend Jho Low have stolen billions of dollars from 1MDB. Can we confiscate their assets such as the luxury real estate in Manhattan, Beverly Hills and London, fine art, and a private jet?”
Najib’s minions are also complaining that 1MDB wasn’t consulted by the US for information. Well, perhaps they were right. Perhaps the American government should have had contacted Pablo Escobar and asked nicely whether he was a drug dealer before conspiring with the Colombian government to hunt, shoot and kill the Colombian drug lord in 1993.
They’re also accusing Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief Abu Kassim Mohamed of secretly contacting the US authorities. In short, Najib Razak, either brilliantly or stupidly, is accusing the United States of a deadly conspiracy to overthrow his government, the same way Turkish President Recep Erdogan accuses the US of the recent failed coup d’état.
More importantly, by launching the police report locally (they never dare to do so overseas, for some strange reason); it actually adds credential to the corruption case – that A.G. Lynch and DOJ were right to seize the billions of dollars allegedly stolen from 1MDB. After all, it’s not everyday you see a country’s top-3 heads of enforcement agencies being accused of conspiracy.
Hey, wait a minute. Attorney General Lynch and DOJ didn’t name Prime Minister Najib Razak as one of the people who had stolen money from 1MDB. They only mentioned Riza Aziz and Jho Low. With the police report, does that mean the Malaysia government now officially admits “Malaysian Official 1” is indeed Najib Razak (*grin*). If not, why bother with the DOJ accusations at all?
To the United States, it only goes to show that the powerful Najib Razak has everything to hide if former Governor of Malaysia’s Central Bank Zeti Akhtar Aziz, former Attorney-General of Malaysia Abdul Gani Patail and the outgoing head of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Abu Kassim Mohamed are to be arrested, intimidated and persecuted.
Why does Najib administration need to send a junior Deputy UMNO Youth Leader to do the dirty work of harassing retired Zeti and Gani and soon-to-retire-Kassim when they could easily get some American lawyers to defend their casein the United States, if Mr. Najib Razak, Riza Aziz and Jho Low were indeed innocent of money laundering and corruption?
It’s pretty simple. If the Malaysian “First Family” is indeed as clean as a whistle, no amount of information and documents could be used to overthrow them. If there was a simple explanation on how Riza Aziz and Jho Low could become billionaire overnight, there’s no reason and justification for the Government of the United States to target PM Najib Razak or his family members.
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