Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Thursday judgment should be withheld until all the facts are known after the US government filed lawsuits seeking to seize $1-billion (U.S.) in assets bought with money stolen from a state fund he oversaw.
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A Malaysian opposition party leader has called on Prime Minister Najib Razak to step down following the lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department to seize $1bn in assets linked to the country’s scandal-plagued 1MDB state investment fund.
The worth of the assets the US Department of Justice wants to seize, believed to be pilfered from 1MDB funds.
The US court filings made thinly veiled references to Malaysian premier Najib Razak, as the US alleged that billions of dollars were siphoned off by Najib’s stepson, a family friend and other officials.
About $1.3 billion raised through purportedly legitimate bond offerings was swiftly transferred to a Swiss bank account and, from there, distributed to fund officials for their personal benefit.
Instead, U.S. prosecutors said fund officials diverted more than $3.5 billion through a web of shell companies and bank accounts overseas.
The lawsuits also named Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, better known as “Jho Low”, and Abu Dhabi government officials Khadem Abdulla Al-Qubaisi and Mohammed Ahmed Badawy Al-Husseiny.
These figures include Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz, Jho Low, other officials, and an individual the United States filing calls “Malaysian Official 1” – a thinly-veiled apparent reference to Najib himself.
The case, she said, is the largest single action in the history of the Justice Department’s kleptocracy initiative, which seeks to stem global corruption by reclaiming the money it produces.
“However, this re-opens it from, certainly, across the Pacific, where the United States now will go forward to try and investigate how these assets were bought”, Rahman said.
The joint statement by Singapore’s central bank, police and attorney-general is the first time authorities revealed asset amounts or identified a key figure since launching investigations previous year.
“Malaysia highly values its bilateral relations with the United States and calls on the U.S. to recognise the various steps taken by the Government of Malaysia to address the 1MDB issue”, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday night.
Singapore revealed Thursday, July 21, it had seized almost $180 million in assets through its investigations into suspected fraud and money-laundering related to scandal-tainted Malaysian state fund 1MDB.
The Justice Department said it will seek to return recovered funds to Malaysia.
Najib was officially cleared of criminality by the Malaysian attorney general earlier this year.
Malaysia has been gripped for more than a year by allegations that billions of dollars were looted from state investment fund 1MDB in an audacious campaign of fraud and money laundering.
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He said Malaysians should stage street protests against Najib, as they have in the past, and push for a referendum on his leadership. The Prime Minister said it was in line with good governance which the government had always advocated. Its filing alleges that between 2009 and 2015 more than $3.5 billion belonging to the firm may have been pinched by “high-level officials of 1MDB and their associates”. “Democracy is not just about elections; it’s also about integrity of institutions, the rule of law and freedom of the media”, he said on Instagram in his latest attack on the administration’s handling of the 1MDB affair.
