Najib arrives at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office in Putrajaya. — AFP photo
KUALA LUMPUR: Embattled former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak arrived at the headquarters of Malaysian Anti-corruption Commission (MACC) which has ordered him to explain a suspicious transfer of RM42 million into his bank account.
The sum is a fraction of billions of dollars allegedly siphoned from state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a scandal that dogged the last three years of Najib’s near-decade-long rule and was one of the main reasons why voters dumped him in an election on May 9.
That shock election result upended Malaysia’s political order, as it was the first defeat for a coalition that had governed the country since its independence from colonial rule in 1957.
The new Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who at the age of 92 came out of political retirement and joined the opposition to topple his former protege, has reopened investigations into 1MDB and has vowed to recover money that disappeared from the fund.
Since losing power, Najib and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, have suffered a series of humiliations, starting with a ban on them leaving the country, and then police searching their home and other properties.
Flanked by security guards, Najib entered the MACC headquarters yesterday, moving slowly through a throng of journalists outside the building.
Wearing an open-neck shirt, Najib looked relaxed and smiled once he entered the building’s atrium.
Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing since the 1MDB scandal erupted in 2015, but he replaced an attorney-general and several MACC officers to shut down an initial investigation.
Najib has said RM2.6 billion of funds deposited in his personal bank account were a donation from a Saudi royal, rebutting reports that the funds came from 1MDB.
The initial focus of the MACC’s new probe is on how RM42 million went from SRC International to Najib’s account.
SRC was created in 2011 by the government to pursue overseas investments in energy resources, and was a unit of 1MDB until it was moved to the finance ministry in 2012.
MACC has been able to track the money trail from SRC more easily because transactions were made through Malaysian entities, whereas most other transfers of 1MDB funds went through foreign banks and companies.
To investigate 1MDB, the new government on Monday set up a task force made up of members of the anti-graft agency, police and the central bank, to liaise with “enforcement agencies in the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada and other related countries”.
The US Department of Justice said yesterday it would continue to pursue investigations into 1MDB and looked forward to working with Malaysian law enforcement authorities.
“The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that the United States and its financial system are not threatened by corrupt individuals and kleptocrats who seek to hide their ill-gotten wealth,” a DoJ spokesperson said in an email statement to Reuters.
“Whenever possible, recovered assets will be used to benefit the people harmed by these acts of corruption and abuse of office,” the statement added. — Reuters