Najib: MACC civil forfeiture lawsuit 'a political ploy to weaken the opposition'

KUALA LUMPUR (June 22): Ex-PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the recent Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) 41 civil forfeiture suits to recover RM270 million belonging to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) that was dispersed from his AmBank account “is a political ploy to weaken the opposition”, reported the Malay Mail yesterday.

“I’m of the opinion that these latest steps taken by MACC are politically motivated in order to weaken the opposition,” Najib said in a posting in his Facebook page.

“After a year of MACC investigations they couldn’t pin a criminal case on anyone so now they [the Pakatan Harapan government] have resorted to a civil lawsuit.”

Najib explained that one of the witnesses during his current SRC International Sdn Bhd graft case revealed that the monies from an Arab prince of RM304 million was deposited into his personal bank account by the Ministry of Finance of Saudi Arabia.

“I was given freedom by the Saudi King to handle these funds. I chose to immediately use the money for welfare projects for the people through various NGO’s and political parties who were organising these events.

“The money wasn’t for personal use or for my family,” Najib clarified.

He also disputed the allegations that he his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor spent RM55 million to buy luxury clothing and expensive clothes from Jakel Trading and Jakel Trading Sdn Bhd, two of the 41 entities/individuals in the MACC list.

“The truth is these payments to Jakel were for clothing supplies bought through the NGO’s and to be distributed to more than 7,000 mosques throughout the country in conjunction with Ramadan for several years.

“This includes offerings to 14,254 spiritual leaders [Imam], 138,746 committee members at 7,261 mosques.

“So it’s weird when Jakel is also being prosecuted for receiving illicit funds when they were only providing supplies to Umno and the NGO’s for welfare programmes,” the Malay Mail reported Najib saying.