KUALA LUMPUR: Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan has named Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak as the Malaysian Official 1 (MO1) identified by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
Abdul Rahman, who is Barisan Nasional (BN) strategic communications director, revealed this in an interview with the BBC, which aired on Thursday.
“It’s obvious that the so-called ‘Malaysian Official 1’ referred to by the US Justice Department is our Prime Minister,” he said in a subsequent statement.
In the statement, he pointed out that: “Many others were also referred to by the DoJ. But, critically, none of them including MO1 were named as subjects of the investigation.”
“As any lawyer will confirm, the difference between being named as the subject of a civil lawsuit, and merely being referred to in an investigation, is black and white.”
He accused former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his allies in the opposition as ‘deliberately mixing the two up to deceive the Malaysian people. The failed protests their proxies organised asking who MO1 is are irrelevant, as MO1 was not named as the subject of any DoJ civil suit’.
According to Abdul Rahman, after comprehensive investigations by multiple authorities, Najib ‘had been cleared of any wrongdoing’.
“So the evidence is clear. And Tun Mahathir’s smears will fail once again – just as all his attempts to topple Malaysia’s democratically elected government have failed miserably,” he said.
In a lawsuit filed in July, the DoJ claimed MO1 conspired to divert vast sums from state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Board (1MDB).
The lawsuit is part of US moves to seize more than US$1 billion in allegedly ill-gotten assets.