Chin Su Phin
KOTA KINABALU: The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had not received any letter from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) regarding a civil forfeiture suit, said its president Datuk Chin Su Phin.
Chin also disclosed that he did not have any knowledge of the money mentioned in the suit.
He said he was not president of the party then.
“I just knew about it from the news report. LDP has not been served with any court papers on this matter. I can only comment once we are served with the relevant court documents,” he said yesterday.
“No idea… Datuk VK Liew was the party president at that time,” he added when asked about the money involved.
Chin was commenting on a statement made yesterday by MACC chief commissioner Latheefa Koya that the MACC was trying to recover some RM270 million belonging to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) that was dispersed from Datuk Seri Najib Razak AmBank account via 41 civil forfeiture suits.
The lawsuits were said to have been filed two days ago against individuals and entities including political parties.
Last year, Chin had stated that LDP received RM3.5 million between 2012 and 2013 during Liew’s tenure as party president, but the party had no idea the money was linked to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) as the scandal had not been exposed.
He said Liew had told the supreme council members that he received the funds from Najib for election expenses before the 13th general election (GE13).
At the time, he was asked to give his statement to the police on the matter.
LDP along with Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) and Sabah Umno were among the 41 entities named by the MACC.
PBRS president Tan Sri Joseph Kurup said the party would cooperate with authorities on the matter.
He said PBRS had been cooperating with the police and MACC all this while and would continue to do so, but declined to say whether the party intended on forfeiting any funds.
“We can’t get into that too much, but I already sat with them, I sat with the police, MACC, and we leave it as it is. We’ll just wait for action to be served,” he said when contacted.
“They are going through court for the order, so we’ll wait for that, and see what we can do. But we will fully cooperate with them,” Kurup added.
Umno Sabah Chief Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin, meanwhile, said they would be consulting their lawyer but would cooperate with authorities.