28 January 2018
There has been a dramatic development in the on-going row between Venezuela and PetroSaudi over the off-shore oil contract that was funded by the 1MDB investment in the Saudi-owned company.
Late last week, the country’s top prosecutor issued criminal proceedings and applied for an international arrest warrant for the former powerful Petroleum Minister, Rafael Ramirez, for the “crimes of intentional embezzlement, money laundering and association”, specifically referring to the so-called “ghost ship” contract with PetroSaudi.
“Ramírez you have to answer to justice for this case, for the case of factor K, and the scrap ship Saturn belonging to the ghost company Petrosaudi,” The chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab is reported as having demanded.
According to the prosecutors the money lost through PetroSaudi was part of US$11 billion stolen from the state oil company PDVSA, of which Ramirez was also head, during his tenure. Prosecutors say this was down to corruption, however Ramirez, who has fled the country and is believed to be hiding in the United States, is putting the matter down to his political rivalry with the current President Maduro.
Venezuela has put out a request to Interpol and is believed to be waiting on their response. Meanwhile, the court filings of the US Dept of Justice made clear last year that none of the profits accrued by PetroSaudi from this unequal deal were returned to 1MDB, which had put in the original investment as part of an alleged joint venture and then series of loan arrangements to the company.
Likewise it has emerged that the two dud drill ships owned by PetroSaudi were the sole assets on which 1MDB’s alleged $2.3 billion Cayman Island investment portfolio was based, thanks to criminal over-valuations procured on behalf of the Malaysian fund by Najib’s advisor Jho Low and a ring of collaborators based at BSI Bank (now closed following investigations into the scandal in Switzerland and Singapore).
With a court battle now underway the full details of the once secretive dealings between PetroSaudi and Ramirez’s team at PDVSA are likely to be laid bare in open court, which should provide even more details for Malaysians about where all their money went.
After all, Prime Minister Najib Razak continues to maintain there was “no wrong-doing”, 1MDB still claims it cashed out from the deal with a $2.3 billion sale of its interest and PetroSaudi has claimed that documents used by Sarawak Report to expose the thefts of hundreds of millions of dollars from 1MDB were ‘doctored’ and forged.
Read the story on Sarawalk ReportMystery Over A Najib Court Cover-Up In Australia!28 January 2018
As more and more tumbles out all over the place about how the rats occupying the lower rungs of UMNO have been raiding public funds, a till now barely reported issue has just slipped out in the Australian media.
Today, whilst detailing how the ex-chairman of the fund for the rural poor MARA has been exposed for stealing millions of dollars from his own fund (what’s new?), the Sydney Morning Herald has revealed that his boss Najib is also implicated in a major corruption case that has been made subject to a “suppression order” by a local Australian court.
According to the Herald article today:
Given the rampant corruption associated with Najib Razak, Malaysians have every right to demand to know what is going on and why the Australian court has seen fit to cover up a corruption case involving their prime minister?
The context for this revelation has been the unravelling story of corrupt property purchases involving Malaysian government funds, which have been the hallmark of Najib’s period of government and in itself an appalling scandal.
Suddenly, in an apparent policy switch by the Malaysian Government after Najib took power, vast chunks of money from the country’s savings funds have been diverted into foreign property ‘investments’ at hugely inflated prices. Every time, in a totally indefensible manner, these ‘investments’ have been conducted through shadowy intermediaries off-shore, making the transactions utterly opaque and enabling the ultimate beneficiaries to be disguised.
There is currently a growing global campaign to ban the off-shore finance industry altogether, given that its primary purpose is to facilitate crime by hiding the details of transactions and the ownership of companies and accounts, whose holders either ought not to be rich or want to avoid tax – usually both.
There is certainly no excuse whatsoever for any form of government transaction involving public money to use off-shore instruments of this kind.
The Malaysian property transactions encouraged by the Najib administration provide ample proof why the practice should be banned, with the MARA story in Australia just one example.
Today’s Herald report details how information gained from the so-called Paradise Papers reveals how millions of dollars were filtched from the purchase of the MARA building in Melbourne and ended up in the MARA chairman’s account.
Firstly, officials working for the head of MARA organised for the building to be deliberately over-valued by a local estate agent in KL. The owner of the Swanston Street building had it on the market for $21.5 million, whereas the MARA officials got the KL estate agent to price it to themselves at $41.8 million:
says the Sydney Morning Herald. Mohammad Lan Allani was the Chairman of MARA. What the Paradise Papers have revealed is that the missing money was chanelled into off-shore companies owned at least in part by Allani.
Who else benefitted from these missing millions belonging to the Malaysian people is yet to emerge. However, Malaysians are free to guess and they know that this particular property transaction is just one of numerous similar inflated foreign buy-ups using public money funnelled through secret off-shore companies.
Malaysians also know that corruption is a phenomenon that begins and ends at the very top. Which is the reason why instead of charging all these flunkeys Prime Minister cum Finance Minister Najib Razak has been doing his best to say that all is in order and nothing is wrong and allowing investigations to drift on year after year before being closed down.
It is therefore of the utmost urgency that the Australian courts address this strange and unusual use of a suppression order to hide a corruption case that allegedly involves this Prime Minister, whose lengthy reputation preceeds him.
The Proof Is In The Pudding
Meanwhile, it is worth bearing in mind that Malaysians are currently being barraged with claims that former Prime Minister Mahathir, currently leading the opposition in its fight to win the election and release the imprisoned opposition leader in waiting, was ‘as bad as Najib himself’.
Yet, when Mahathir left office, funds set up for the benefit of rural and retired Malaysians still contained billions of dollars worth of savings, whereas from the moment Najib took office those funds have been raided and rapidly depleted by deliberate thefts of this nature.
There are powerful lobbyists with political connections who are supporting Najib in both Britain and Australia, thanks to all this dirty money. However, the people of Malaysia derserve to know the truth from the Australian authorities.
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Showing posts with label Sarawak Report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarawak Report. Show all posts
Sunday, 28 January 2018
Sarawak Report Venezuela Issues Criminal Prosecution Against Ex-Oil Minister Over PetroSaudi Contract....
Saturday, 27 January 2018
Sarawak Report Don't Be Fooled - 'Undi Rosak' Is Najib's Key Campaign Objective
27 January 2018
Don’t be fooled by this latest coordinated campaign just unleashed to encourage young voters stay at home.
Far from genuinely disapproving of it, it is a key part of the PM’s campaign strategy for this election, which is now being rolled out through the media and online as part of an obvious and deliberate attempt to boost his chances against all odds.
There is one fellow who will benefit from this campaign and he is not the one currently behind bars
Of course, under present circumstances, where he has been exposed as one of the world’s worst kleptocrats, Najib Razak would rather not have an election at all. Indeed, most of the countries he seems to admire do not permit democratic rights and if he could he would cancel the pesky review of his position.
It is only the existing suppression of genuine democracy that has allowed Najib to remain in post. In a democratic country ruled by law the PM would have been removed and prosecuted in the first half of 2015, when law-enforcers attempted to bring his criminal activities to book.
Therefore, it is entirely likely that he hopes to snuff out elections altogether to protect himself. But, first he needs to win GE 14. So, who is advising him on how to do it and what is their advice going to be?
At his disposal and paid for, as usual, by millions of dollars of diverted public money, will be a covert army of international election agents, local experts and of course Special Branch, all armed with the latest information and advice on how to gain crucial advantages over his opponents.
Yes, of course, Najib is currently gerrymandering in every possible way, pushing to get approval for the most outrageous manipulations through the courts. However, any decent advisor worth his salt will also have warned the PM that he needs to overwhelm a very widespread sense of revulsion, most particularly amongst that growing segment of the electorate, which is the informed younger urban voter.
This is the demographic challenge that has worried BN/UMNO increasingly as each election has gone by. Young people are sick of seeing the same corrupted party in charge (now the longest running government in the world) and they want change and reform. BN has dealt with it as best they can, which is why many urban seats now contain some 150,000 voters, while backwoods rural seats populated by these people’s grannies can have as few as one tenth.
But, as the numbers relentlessly build against the incumbant office-holders there is one obvious tactic that experts are without question also recommending to Najib, which is to convince these young and reform minded voters to simply ‘make a statement’ and stay at home. Convincing disillusioned young voters to refuse to give their support to either side was one of the great triumphs of the Trump campaign. Young progressives were never going to vote for Trump, so the key way to disarm them was to prevent them from voting for Clinton either.
Najib hopes to pull the same trick on young Malaysians
Of course, BN are not going to advocate this advantageous strategy themselves and give the game away. They will employ ambassadors and con well-intentioned buffoons and attention seekers to do the job on their behalf. Facebook, Twitter and social media are perfectly designed to viral such ideas as if they were spontaneous and BN’s ‘Cyber-warfare Unit’ has been created with thousands of paid up bloggers ready to perform these very tasks.
This was exactly how Trump managed to swing his victory, with young people encouraged online to “show their disapproval” by not even bothering to cast their vote.
Talking about self-betrayal. In a democracy failure to vote represents the ultimate act of irresponsibility – the surrender of hard-won freedoms out of laziness or stupidity. But, if electors can be misled and deceived into thinking of it as a positive gesture, well then that is exactly what Najib has been paying all those millions of diverted public money to ‘election strategists’ and ‘communications experts’ for.
Without a doubt it is these forces who have been behind the emergence over past days of such a well-coordinated and well-publicised campaign to spoil votes or stay at home.
Najib has affected disapproval, but don’t believe a word of it! It is absolutely in his interests to deter young voters and the very fact that this is a well-coordinated campaign, suddenly appearing everywhere, tells people all they need to know about who is really behind movement and using those foolish spokespeople standing up to champion a boycott that can only help Najib.
When you have a sudden twitter army all saying the same thing, you know you have Najib’s state cyber-trooper operation behind the effort. The messaging is targetted at youth. Why vote for the old guy Mahathir, these strategists are putting it about. He means more of the same, just like Najib. Forget the fact that he has said he will step down the moment Anwar is freed from jail where Najib put him. Forget the opposition agenda for reform. Just make a lazy protest and stay away from the ballot box altogether.
Najib’s strategists know that every young voter who stays at home is almost certainly another vote that does not go to the opposition. It worked for Donald Trump and it worked for Brexit in the UK and Najib has the same advisors working very hard to make it work for him in KL. But, those more innocent supporters who are attracted by the proposal should realise that if BN can win this election the chances are very strong that it will be Malaysia’s last and that those who didn’t vote won’t get another opportunity to repeat their ‘protest’ ever.
So, expect pop stars, expect Facebook opinion formers, expect videos and people on TV to start saying over and over that their ‘ultimate protest’ will be to stay at home and ‘withhold their vote’. Expect to be bombarded by online messages and whatsapp encouraging you to ‘join the army of non-voters’ who are demanding ‘real change’.
But, don’t be fooled about what this is all about. If Najib can get away with this he may indeed tilt the balance of the election away from reform and change and right back towards another five years of corrupted single party rule.
If Malaysia wants change it needs a mass turnout and anyone who is saying otherwise is either silly or supect… or a sad sucker. Don’t be!
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Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Sarawak Report : 'Vote Buying' The Legitimate Way - Pakatan Harapan's New Deal For Sarawak - Comment
'Vote Buying' The Legitimate Way - Pakatan Harapan's New Deal For Sarawak - Comment23 January 2018
The money changes hands
Politicians are frequently accused of ‘vote buying’. Unfortunately, in Malaysia this is generally meant literally, given that actual cash is indeed shamefully handed out round the back of election booths and during other grubby transactions by politicians who conduct themselves as big time crooks.
Figuratively, on the other hand, the enticement of voters is the lifeblood of democracy, where policians rival each other to present policies and proposals that will make life better for voters – or make them wealthier – so that those voters switch to them.
In Sarawak, Pakatan Harapan has come up with a generous new deal that will enable the state to at last keep a chunk of its own money for much needed development (as long as Taib and BN crooks can be kept off it).
It is a shocking disgrace that those states which have provided the most easy wealth for the progress of Malaysia in terms of natural resources, such as oil and gas, have been the least to benefit. All that patrimony of the people has been sucked out – one would like to say for the advantage of ordinary Malaysians elsewhere, but mainly to enrich a crony political class.
So, now that Pakatan Harapan is offering Sawarak at least 20% of its own petroleum revenues and 50% of its own tax revenues, voters ought to understand a better deal when they see it.
Adenan wanted to offer these terms to his own people at the last election, however Najib refused to allow that to be added to the BN manifesto and there is no likelihood that Abang Jo will be allowed to offer it to the region that the present Putrajaya likes to treat as a colony, rather than with the equal status demanded under the formation of Malaysia.
Compare the worth of the two separate offerings by the political groupings. BN will be offering their usual envelope of RM10-50 or even 500, depending on how poor and easily bribed their various voters are, whereas Harapan is now offering billions that can be channelled into health, schools, water and electricity supplies, roads and old age support.
The joy is that the vote buying is illegal, so voters are perfectly entitled to consider the envelopes of cash as a gift and accept them as such, whilst legitimately voting for the massive cash injection into the state promised by Pakatan Harapan.
Now that is what you call a very good deal!
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Sunday, 7 January 2018
Sarawak Report FELDA SCANDAL - Investigators Should Enquire At PMO (FLOM Division)
7 January 2018
Back in 2014 Sarawak Report first started to receive concerned notices from people related to what was going on at FELDA, namely the massive expenditures on dodgy investments that then appeared to leak the money of trusting settlers into the hands of the privileged and connected.
As one person with every reason to know wrote:
“Look Into Felda Global Ventures, they are broke… sensitive docs prove an excess of RM2 Billion is being furiously padded on projects being approved to be siphoned off my PM & his wife”
Sarawak Report has subsequently sighted the documents referred to. These include memos from the Prime Minister/Finance Minister’s Office to Isa Samad, then Chairman of Felda, urging him to hurry up and process billion dollar payments to a small, unlicenced foreign investment vehicle.
The investment vehicle’s proposal was that it would then put the money into properties and raise a healthy return on them. However, given the sheer size of the enormous investment, the handing over of control of such a sum plainly represented a huge risk.
The extraordinarily low level of due dilligence behind the project gives the appearance of deliberate negligence on the part of Felda management. However the correspondence sighted by Sarawak Report makes it clear that they were under direct and urgent pressure to agree to the deal by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Writing and signing this correspondence on behalf of the Prime Minister was one Siti Azizah Binti Sheikh Abod, describing herself as Pegawai Khas Kepada, YAB Perdana Menteri [Special Officer To, YAB Prime Minister].
In one letter, dated 19th September 2013 and addressed to Y.B. Tan Sri Haji Mohd Isa Bin Dato’ Haji Abdul Samad, Ms Abod urges the Chairman of FELDA in these words [translated]:
Subject: Financial Management With FELDA Holdings by XX XX XX XX
“With regards to the matter above and under the orders of the Prime Minister for the business between the Prime Minister’s Office and FELDA Holdings and YB Tan Sri as the Chairman of FELDA, please hand the Statement of Readiness document over to the PM’s Office immediately. This is to ensure the investment project can proceed immediately and provide the investment returns.
I thank you for your cooperation.
This note was copied to Najib Razak himself and the ‘business’ referred to in the letter was a proposed investment of one billion US dollars in a previously unheard of private company managed by two foreigners, one of whom had no professional financial background.
Siti Abod, Head of FLOM Unit at PMO was emailing FELDA Chair directing his investments
Siti Azizah Sheikh Abod, Head of FLOM Unit at PMO, was emailing the FELDA Chair directing his investments
Investigators must wonder why the Prime Minister himself was interfering in such a way to push such an extraordinary deal involving the precious finances raised for FELDA farmers as a result of the recent floation of their plantation assets on the stock market? This is particularly so, since that flotation was driven through politically by the Prime Minister cum Finance Minister himself.
Three years later and most of that money raised has now disappeared, resulting in the present investigations by corruption agents into FELDA and indeed its former Chairman Isa Samad. Perhaps, particularly in the light of such parallel scandals as 1MDB, where the Prime Minister has been identified as the ‘Malaysian Official One’ behind a series of monster thefts by the US Department of Justice, the anti-corruption investigators ought to be raising their eyes higher than Mr Samad?
There is another interesting angle to this worrying correspondence. Ms Abod, the author of this and related letters held a specific role at that time in the Prime Minister’s Office, which has been identified in official listings and already publicised. She was in fact the head of the unit within PMO known as ‘FLOM’.
Enquiries have established that ‘FLOM’ referred to First Lady Of Malaysia, who had opened her own unit within her husband’s office at taxpayers’ expense and her confidant Ms Abod was at the head of it.
Perhaps it is time to enquire more deeply as to the exact daily duties of Ms Abod on Rosmah Mansor’s behalf, especially when those duties tied in with the Financial decisions of her husband?
FELDA settlers for one will be extremely interested to have full answers, given that their multi-billion dollar nest egg has now substantially evaporated under the guardianship of Najib Razak and Isa Samad.
Friday, 22 December 2017
Sarawak Report : ‘FOREIGN FACILITATORS IN KL FOR PAST FEW WEEKS’ TO HELP NAJIB & CO LAUNDER THE CASH FOR IPIC REPAYMENT: ALL EYES ON WHICH ‘PUBLIC SOURCE’ WAS LATEST RM2.5BIL STOLEN FROM TO REPAY 1MDB’S MASSIVE DEBT
The Minister of Finance, who is the man behind the entire 1MDB fiasco and theft, will of course have to find the money to pay the vast sum awarded against it by a court order to Abu Dhabi’s IPIC- a second tranche of US$602 million is due by the end of the month.
Ultimately, the Ministery of Finance/ Malaysian taxpayer is resonsible for all 1MDB’s debts, thanks to the various agreements behind the massive borrowing that went on. The fund and Prime Minister’s spokesmen have, sadly, lied about this responsibility on a number of occasions over the years, pretending that 1MDB’s borrowing was not backed by the Malaysian Government.
However, everyone is now very used to lies and misleading statements from these quarters, ranging from bogus royal donors to bogus investments, bogus cash accounts and bogus off-shore companies. So, noone will be surprised to be treated to another load of obvious porkies, when the recently extended CEO of 1MDB, Arul Kanda, comes out at the end of the month to claim that 1MDB has paid the debt after ‘cashing in units’ available in its bank accounts.
He won’t bring any evidence to back such claims: transparency it not where things lie with 1MDB. He will just ask the world to believe that units, which have been shown to be valueless by FBI investigators and which were equally found to be valueless by the Singapore authorities, who have tried and convicted the banking fraudsters involved in helping 1MDB executives pretend otherwise, were cashed in to produce the sum.
This will involve skirting round the equally awkward fact that the bank, where these units are supposedly housed, was closed down over the 1MDB fraud allegations over a year ago. We can rest assured that the ever-grinning Arul Kanda, backed by his Big Boss, the PM/MOF, will ignore such trivial details just as he did when he made this same claim, when they paid off the first tranche of the fine earlier in the year.
JP Morgan Rapped By Swiss Authorities
All this has emerged as yet MORE solid evidence of the extensive crimes related to 1MDB and its associates has been announced, this time again by the Swiss financial regulator FINMA, who today condemned the major US bank JP Morgan for failure to prevent money laundering through 1MDB-related accounts. FINMA has announced the gentle sanction that it has placed the bank under ‘special monitoring’.
Sarawak Report has reported extensively over the past two years on the obvious irregularities manifested in the way JP Morgan handled the 1MDB/PetroSaudi Joint Venture account, at the same time as it managed the private accounts of PetroSaudi directors Tarek Obaid and Patrick Mahony.
As was amply illustrated by the money trails identified by the business newspaper, The Edge, back in 2015, vast sums were casually transferred out of the joint venture account (controlled by the Minister of Finance, Tarek Obaid and Prince Turki) into various private accounts in the names of Obaid and Mahony and then on again into business accounts controlled by these two individuals on behalf of PetroSaudi only.
The 1MDB money trail shows how JP Morgan allowed money to flow from business to private accounts and then back to PetroSaudi accounts relating, for example, to PetroSaudi’s own ventures in Venezuela
From time to time 1MDB has claimed some sort of interest in the investments PetroSaudi then made in Venezuela. Its so-called Segregated Portfolio Fund in the Cayman Islands turned out to be backed by a couple of drillships owned by PetroSaudi as part of this Venezuelan enterprise.
However, the fact is these enterprises were controlled by PetroSaudi, using the cash injected by 1MDB, which was then funnelled out of the joint venture into the web of accounts controlled by Obaid and Mahony at JP Morgan. The FBI investigators have pointed out in their own court filings that 1MDB has never received a penny back from the Venezuelan venture, which was funded in this manner.
Likewise, money similarly funnelled through this web of accounts from 1MDB, funded a fancy London house for Director Patrick Mahony and further money was siphoned out to pay for a secret buy-out of Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s company UBG in 2010 – a company in which 1MDB advisor Jho Low had taken an earlier stake.
Sarawak Report has also reported how further millions were channelled through the same JP Morgan network of accounts to pay fat fees to then PetroSaudi joint shareholder, Prince Turki bin Abdullah, recently himself arrested by the Saudi authorities on corruption charges. Before this injection of 1MDB cash, Tarek Obaid had run up a serious overdraft on credit cards managed by the bank, according to documentation seen by Sarawak Report.
This is how news agency Reuters has reported FINMA’s findings today:
“Enforcement proceedings conducted by FINMA between May 2016 and June 2017 uncovered serious shortcomings in the anti-money laundering controls of J.P. Morgan (Switzerland) Ltd in connection with business relationships and transactions associated with the allegedly corrupt Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB,” FINMA said in a statement.The bank had failed to identify heightened risks in some instances, FINMA said, while in others it failed to adequately manage risks after identifying clients as politically exposed persons requiring special scrutiny.“The bank failed in particular to identify the money-laundering risks relating to cash flows between business accounts and personal accounts,” the supervisor said.“In one case, it credited hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars from the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, allegedly earmarked for the purchase of a company, to the personal account of an individual with close ties to a 1MDB business partner.”Part of that money was then transferred to a business account associated with the person, FINMA said, without the bank having questioned the purpose or procedure behind the transactions or the substantial sum that stayed in the private account.
The private accounts referred to by FINMA are clearly those linked to the PetroSaudi directors and shareholders, together with their various business dealings. These individuals are still under investigation by various global law enforcers, including the DOJ’s own criminal investigation and it seems inevitable that the full details and names of these shady transactions will eventually be made public.
Meanwhile, Najib and his political allies and colleagues at 1MDB will continue to claim:
a) that there was ‘no wrong-doing’,
b) that Malaysians are ‘bored sick of all this harping on’ about the multi-billion dollar thefts and simply ‘don’t care’ about being robbed and
c) that there is plenty of money still left in the 1MDB fund to pay the IPIC debt without further raiding other public funds.
Where Will Najib Raid Next To Get The Money To Pay Off 1MDB?
All of the above excuses are plainly spurious. However, what ought to worry Malaysians most at this juncture is what new ruses their Minister of Finance will have been getting up to, in order to meet the obligations to IPIC, despite all this pretence?
Where are they stealing from at the moment to make good the debt?
Sarawak Report has learnt from those in a position to know that various foreign facilitators, linked into similar ‘joint venture’ roles to the one fronted by PetroSaudi, have been parked in KL for the past few weeks organising transfers of cash to meet the payment. Malaysians have a right to know from which public sources those transfers have been made, yet we can all predict that Arul Kanda will be wheeled out to once again lie that it was money 1MDB already had in its threadbare accounts.
What is clear is that a government that has already shown willing to perform kleptocracy of the worst kind, in the words of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week, will not hesitate to thieve again to get itself off the hook. Malaysians will merely be left guessing which of their public savings funds has been abused and whose pensions will be affected as a result?
The truth will eventually out, but Najib plainly hopes that will be after he has forced himself an ‘election win’, once again through a costly ‘campaign’, all at the expense of ordinary Malaysians, whom he plans to bribe with their own money, secretly siphoned out of the public funds which he controls.
– Sarawak Report
Monday, 20 November 2017
Sarawak Report Sabah Air Mystery - UK's Open Company Register Contradicts Official Statement
20 November 2017
Sarawak Report has no inside track on the story that has been raging in Sabah about the Gulfstream G220 jet, which opposition folk have queried for being used by a prominent Sabah politician.
However, we have examined the official statement apparently made by the Sabah State Government, in which it alleged to the news portal Free Malaysia Today that the UK company Innosky Limited, which owns the jet, is a 100% subsidiary of Sabah Air
The UK Company register is an open resource, which provides free and easy access to members of the public who wish to gain basic information about companies registered in the UK.
This means that anyone who looks can find the following facts in a few seconds online: first Innosky Limited has been struck off since last year and so is no longer an active company; second it was before that a dormant company since its incorporation in 2011 and thirdly that the four equal shareholders of Innosky Limited based in Birmingham were four Swiss nationals of no stated occupation – there is no mention whatsoever of Sabah Air being the 100% shareholder.
A dormant company since incorporation that was eventually struck off since last year – no record of owning a jet
Since the company was never valued beyond the paltry £400 that the four Swiss nationals originally invested in order to obtain their 100 shares each, valued at a pound, one wonders how the company could ever have been the registered owner of a jet?
A company that was never valued at over £400 (RM2,400)
Indeed, the latest accounts for the company, before the application to strike it off, were produced in September 2015 and they registered it as a dormant company with assets valued only at that £400 investment, thereby allowing the company an exemption on filing formal and more detailed accounts. This would not have been legally acceptable if Innosky Limited was actually the owner of a jet aircraft and acting as a subsidiary of Sabah Air
Exemption on filing accounts on account of being dormant
Sabah Air is wholly owned by the Sabah State Government. It appears to have provided a statement that is in complete contradiction of verifiable facts. Perhaps a clarification of the situation could be provided in order to make the exact situation clear to a mystified public?
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Thursday, 9 November 2017
Sarawak Report : BLACKMAILED BY "THE MASTERMINDS OF THE CONSPIRACY"! Why Deepak Changed His Story AGAIN, As A Mysterious RM250,000 Is Delivered To Bala's Widow!
EXCLUSIVE
For months Sarawak Report has quietly followed events and accumulated evidence as a disgraceful attempt to blackmail witnesses in a case before the Malaysian court has apparetly unfolded.
Behind this alleged blackmail are none other than Malaysia’s first couple, Najib and Rosmah, who are described as the “Masterminds And Beneficiaries of this Conspiracy” numerous times in the original Statement that defendant Deepak Jaikashan was less than a hour away from placing before the High Court in KL a fortnight ago on 25th October.
Sarawak Report has an exclusive copy of that original statement, which was forwarded via third parties from Deepak himself.
Deepak’s original defence was forwarded indirectly to SR at his request
However, just minutes before filing that defence, Deepak suddenly asked the court for an extension of time. Later, on November 6th, an entirely different Statement of Defence was submitted on his apparent behalf by the lawyer Shafee Abdullah, the Prime Minister’s own key legal advisor, demanding that the case of Selvi Satamil, PI Bala’s widow, be struck out.
The reason? Sarawak Report has information that agents of the Minister of Finance had, minutes before Deepak arrived at the court, sent out the message that the tax authorities would forgive him a monstrous, trumped up tax bill of millions of ringgit that the businessman has complained was being used against him to make him cooperate to change his plea.
Deepak Jaikashan – a blackmail victim with a struggling conscience?
Today, that conspiracy appears to have been laid bare, thanks to the bravery and rectitude of the widow of PI Bala, Selvi Santamil.
Last Thursday, her lawyers have reportedly received a huge bundle of used notes, delivered to their offices without explanation by Deepak.*
Was this gift the product of the struggling conscience of the 8th Defendant in her case, who once again left her in the lurch by changing his defence at the last moment? So far, he has refused to offer a reason for depositing the cash.
Yet Sarawak Report can exclusively reveal that Defendant 8 has for months repeatedly claimed he has been placed under extreme financial pressure to change his plea in Selvi’s case, thanks to a massive tax bill orchestrated against him by a fellow defendant in the case, namely the MOF, PM otherwise known as MO1.
The bundle of money photographed by Selvi’s solicitors before it was placed in a safe account
An Extraordinary Unfolding Story Of Blackmail
Sarawak Report has followed the twists and turns behind this shocking legal saga for several months, accumulating a devastating dossier of evidence in the form of phone calls, documents, texts and recorded evidence.
Selvi Santamil, the widow of PI Bala, had sued 9 defendants, whom she blamed for the stress and loss of income inflicted on her husband, her family and herself, after he was allegedly forced to change his testimony over the case of the Prime Minister’s murdered Mongolian translator back in 2008.
PI Bala had issued a Statutory Declaration on 3rd July 2008 detailing his evidence relating to the murder and later conviction of two of Najib’s bodyguards for that offence, which he said had been suppressed during the court case. However, overnight following a sensational news conference in which he released the explosive details of that evidence, he withdrew the declaration and issued a replacement (known as his 2nd Statutory Declaration) in a morning press conference.
Selvi turned in the money
Bala then had disappeared with his family, only to resurface back in KL in early 2013, shortly before the 13th General Election, to make the accusation that he had been forced to make the changes by family members of Najib Razak and their agents, who included Deepak Jaikashan.
In return for removing all referrences to the then Deputy PM in his SD Bala had been given money to flee into exile he explained. He also said that he had been threatened to do so by a brother of Najib Razak, who had indicated his family was no longer safe if he remained in KL without altering the declaration.
Shortly after this shocking series of revelations and just before the election, Bala died of a heart attack.
A Problematic 8th Defendant
Widowed Selvi has struggled to look after her family ever since, having been promised on many occasions that they would be cared for. She launched proceedings against the 9 Defendants, which included explosive details of an apparent cover-up to suppress her husband’s evidence as laid out in the First SD.
P I Bala – died of a heart attack after speaking out
In 2013 PI Bala had announced he stood by that original SD in an explosive pre-election press conference.
Just as explosive had been a series of press statements by Deepak Jaikashan, who next went public to admit that his role in the alleged cover-up was just as Bala had alleged. Deepak told the media he had indeed contacted the private investigator on behalf of Najib and Rosmah on the night he changed his SD and that he had accompanied two of Najib’s brothers and a number of solicitors to a hotel in KL, where they forced Bala to alter his declaration overnight.
It was on the basis of these statements that Selvi launched her case for damages last year which has turned into a long running court battle full of twists and turns. Eight of the defendants, including Najib and Rosmah and his brothers Nazir and Johari, demanded the case be struck out. However, Deepak, at first testified that he did not want to contest the case as to do so would contradict his own previous public remarks and admissions that what Bala had said was true.
If the case continued against Deepak then the whole sordid tale of alleged cover-up would have been scrutinised in court however and it was perhaps of little suprise when late last year Deepak suddenly changed his plea and hired Najib’s own top lawyer, Shafee Abdullah, who put in a motion to strike out like everybody else – a motion that was controversially accepted immediately by the court.
There had been a last minute wavering even then, however, because Deepak tried to dismiss Shafee just before the hearing, announcing he had decided to put in his own defence after all.
Yet, astonishingly, Shafee refused to be dismissed and the judges supported that refusal and denied Deepak the right to change his plea from what his lawyer wanted. A furious complaint was issued by Selvi’s lawyers, who then relaunched the case.
Letter from Shafee warning Deepak not to drop him from the original case
The judges in fact controversially refused to allow Deepak to drop his lawyer who had been allegedly forced on him by Najib
As that new case progressed in the course of this year Sarawak Report developed close contacts to people close to Defendant 8, Deepak Jaikashan, who provided information and evidence substantiating a complaint by him that he was being persistently blackmailed to fall in line with the other defendants and plea to deny all Selvi’s complaints and strike out the case.
Slapped With A Massive Tax Bill for ROSMAH’s Land Deals
According to this evidence received by Sarawak Report Deepak Jaikashan suddently found himself landed with a massive multi-million ringgit tax bill issued by the revenue authorities shortly after he had made it clear that he was refusing to join the other Defendants in contesting Selvi’s case.
Sarawak Report understands from reliable sources that these bills related to profits that Deepak had earned on paper from a series of lucrative land deals, which he had conducted as a proxy for Rosmah Mansor, whom he describes as a ‘Business Partner’ in the original Defence Statement, which he had been planning to submit before the court in October. Indeed, Deepak’s close relationship with Rosmah and his apparent role as a facilitator has been long admitted by the businessman, who admitted to organising several purchases for the Prime Minister’s wife of expensive diamonds.
In conversations with Sarawak Report, Deepak has acknowledged several times over the past year that he had agreed to withdraw from Selvi’s original case on the promise that this tax bill would be withdrawn. He complained that the bill had been orchestrated by the Minister of Finance in a clear abuse of power and said that a close crony of the PM, Abdul Azeez, had been dispatched to inform him that if he changed his plea the bill would be reduced.
Tensions built in February as Deepak waited for confirmation on his tax bill from Najib’s envoy Abdul Azeez
He had agreed, he has explained on several occasions to Sarawak Report, which accounted for his originally hiring Shafee (on the advice of Azeez) to take him out of the case. However, according to Deepak, the Minister of Finance reneged on that commitment to waive the bill (which he believes ought to have been paid by Rosmah, who was the actual person who made the profits).
Originally, Deepak said, he had been informed that the proceedings against him for the money had been dropped. Then he received letter, which said that this decision had been over-ruled by the Finance Minister himself.
“Najib wanted to keep a noose around my neck”,
Deepak has told Sarawak Report and it was that reversal which had prompted his attempt to drop Shafee and change his plea at the last minute in the original case last year.
It was for this same reason that he was apparently again refusing to cooperate with the other defendants in fighting the new case brought by Selvi that is still on-going.
Another angry interchange in February as Deepak awaited confirmation from Abdul Azeez that his tax issue would be resolved before he agreed to comply with the defence produced by Najib’s lawyer Shafee
Right up to the day Deepak was due to put in his defence he had held out against taking back Shafee as his lawyer and against cooperating with the other defendants who were moving to strike out Selvi’s new case against them.
He had even drawn up a bombshell Statement that admitted and corroborated every substantial detail of Selve’s allegations, of which Sarawak Report has a copy. However, at last, as Sarawak Report has been reliably informed, the news came through that the tax bill would be indeed dramatically reduced.
With just an hour before the deadline for filing his defence Deepak asked for an extension to “amend his statement”. The next day he is believed to have settled a vastly reduced tax bill agreed by officials at the revenue department.
Shafee signed off Depak’s revised statement presently before the court in place of the original statement drawn up by Deepak’s previous lawyers
Later, Shafee Abdullah submitted a new and completely altered defence statement that fell in line with the denials of the other 8 defendants and likewise moved to strike out Selvi’s case.
Deepak’s Original Statement Of Defence – The Details
Sarawak Report has been passed copy of that original Statement of Defence, which in contrast to the revised document produced by Shafee, explosively admits to every key allegation made by Bala’s widow about the threats, blackmail and forced exile forced on the private detective after he spoke out.
To understand the admissions Deepak made in that original statement, it is important to rehearse what was alleged in Selvi’s original Statement of Claim, which he was acknowledging to be true. For example:
“On or about the evening of 03.07.2008, the 8th Defendant [Deepak Jaikashan] received a telephone call from the 2md Defendant [Rosmah]. [Rosmah] instructed [Deepak] to resolve the problem occasioned by the release of the deceased’s [PI Bala] ‘SD1′ [1st Statutory Declaration] that day and requested [Deepak] to attend the official residence of the Deputy Prime Minister, Sri Satria, at Putrajaya to discuss the matter further that very evening.[Deepak] duly complied with these instructions and attended the official residence of [Najib] that evening where he met both [Najib] and [Rosmah]. [Deepak] was informed by [Najib] and [Rosmah] that he [Deepak] was to arrange a meeting with [Bala] with a view to organize a retraction of ‘SD1′ by a further Statutory Declaration to be signed by the deceased.At all material times [Deepak] acted as the agent of [Najib] and [Rosmah] and upon their directions to him.Acting as such agent as aforesaid, [Deepak] met [Bala] at a restaurant in the town of Rawang, Selangor. At the said meeting [Deepak] requested [Bala] to retract SD1. Monetary compensation and threats to the safety of the deceased and the Plaintiffs were offered as an inducement for the proposed retraction“[from Selvi’s complaint to the court]
By admitting to the above, which Deepak does in his original complaint, he has acknowledged that on Najib’s and his wife’s orders PI Bala was subject both to bribes and threats to the safety of himself and his family to make him comply with the demand that he issue a new Statutory Declaration. The allegation could hardly be more serious.
Selvi’s case particulars continue with a series of further devastating paragraphs, which is it now understood that Deepak’s defence does not deny. Instead he says that whilst Selvi’s allegations are indeed true, he was not personally responsible because he was merely acting on behalf of Najib and Rosmah, whom he describes on numerous times, according to what Sarawak Report has learnt, as the “masterminds and beneficiaries of this conspiracy” to blackmail Bala. A conspiracy that included two of Najib’s brothers and their lawyers, according to Selvi’s continuing complaint:
Later, on the same evening [Bala] was introduced to the 4th Defendant [Nazim Razak, Najib’s brother] who advised [Bala] in no uncertain terms, that he was to follow the instructions of [Deepak] if he loved his family and cared for their safety.[Bala] was then taken to the Hilton Hotel in KL Sentral and escorted to a room which had been booked by [Deepak]. [Bala] was kept in this room … until the morning of 04.07.2008.The 3rd Defendant [Johari Razak, Najib’s brother] contacted the 5th Defendant [lawyer Cecil Abraham] and instructed the preparation of a Statutory Declaration to be signed by the deceased in which a retraction of the contents of ‘SD1′ was to be made.[Cecil Abraham], with the assistance of the 6th Defendant [his son Sunil Abraham] prepared the said Statutory Declaration (‘SD2′), as instructed. [Sunil Abraham] thereafter delivered ‘SD2′ to the lobby of the Hilton Hotel KL Sentral sometime in the early hours of the morning of the 04.07.2008 …. [Selvi’s statement]
A short while later, goes on Selvi’s statement, a Commissioner for Oaths named Zainal Abidin Bin Muhayat (Defendant 7) arrived to get Bala’s signature on the document. Bala was not given the opportunity to read the contents of the new SD and nor did he have his own lawyer present: he was merely asked to sign.
Bala was then driven to a second press conference at 8.45am held at the Prince Hotel to present the second SD. Selvi says Deepak organised the event and Deepak admits it in his original statement, save to say he was carrying out the orders of Rosmah and Najib.
Bala had been told he must say nothing at this second press conference and that all the talking would be carried out by the 9th Defendant, who was the lawyer Arulampalam Mariampillai, brought in to conduct the public side of the event, according to Deepak’s testimony, because Cecil Abraham was scared to be seen to be involved himself.
In an act of blistering irony Arulampalam Mariampillai at that conference informed the press that Bala had admitted that his first SD had been compiled under duress so he was retracting it and providing this new one. He then handed out copies of the new SD without taking any questions and ended the press conference immediately. At no point were Bala’s actual lawyers called.
Significantly, Bala’s 2nd SD was similar to the original, save that every referance to Najib Razak (of which there had been a number) had been removed.
Bala was then driven back to the Hilton Hotel to await his family and shortly after the whole family were flown to Bangkok and then on to exile in India where for the next 56 months the family struggled on what they claim were inadequate payments from the conspirators, who had promised to fund their life hidden in exile.
Business Partner of Rosmah’s
Deepak’s original Defence Statement was devastating in that it admitted all the above details in Selvi’s accusations, although it excused his own role by placing responsibilty squarely with the powerful couple who wanted the SD changed, because Bala had connected Najib to Altantuya’s murder, carried out by his own bodyguards.
Describing himself in that defence statement as the ‘business partner’ of Rosmah, Deepak has darkly hinted that he has plenty to tell about the alleged land deals that he and the then wife of the Deputy Prime Minister engaged in during that period of “business partnership”.
A Compensation Case Evolves Into A Blackmail Case?
Given the pressure put on Deepak Jaikashan it is perhaps understandable that he has behaved the way he has, changing his testimony and his position on Selvi’s case time and again. It seems plain from his evidence that the businessman has struggled between his concience and a desire to tell the truth and the need to ensure his own financial survival.
Was this the reason why subsequent to his latest U-turn and the submission of Shafee’s revised Statement of Defence on his behalf, a secretive bundle of cash was mysteriously delivered by Deepak, apparently to help the struggling widow, whose case he had once again destroyed at the very last minute?
Sarawak Report understand that Deepak has refused to offer any reason for the RM250,ooo deposited with Selvi’s lawyers, however they have concluded the payment was for their client and have declared it as such before the court, categorising it as an undeclared downpayment of the sum that is actually owed.
The money has been lodged in a protected client account by her lawyers, pending immediate court action over this shocking case.
The highest political figure in the land and several members of his family now face the gravest possible questions about their conduct in a monster cover-up relating to an horrific murder case.
* altered from early version of this story where Sarawak Report had been erroniously given to understand the money was delivered anonymously to Selvi herself. Our apologies for an unfortunate error on a fast-breaking story.
To be updated – breaking story……
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