Attorney-General Apandi should be part of Najib’s delegation to Washington to meet up with US Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ascertain what evidence the US Government has to pursue the 1MDB case against 1MDB conspirators including “MO1”

Yesterday, I suggested that Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Dzulkifli Ahmad should accompany the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on the latter’s trip of Washington so that Dzulkifli can meet his counterparts in the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to ascertain the basis and latest status of US Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations into the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal as well as to learn the FBI investigation techniques which had enabled FBI to amass a mountain of evidence about criminal aspects of 1MDB scandal but which is beyond the present investigatory capabilities and prowess of MACC.

However, Najib’s delegation to the United States would be incomplete without the participation of the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali himself, especially as Malaysia had been tarred with the infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy precisely because of the US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s largest kleptocratic litigation in US history to forfeit US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets around the world, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Apandi should meet with US Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ascertain what evidence the US Government has to pursue the 1MDB case against 1MDB conspirators including “MO1”.

What is particularly disconcerting and troubling is the FBI/DOJ confirmation that the DOJ asset seizures are part of the FBI criminal investigation into the largest global kleptocracy in US history – which hails from Malaysia!

A few days ago, in its filings to the US Court in California, the FBI depicted the Najib government in very unflattering terms – when explaining why the DOJ had applied to freeze the civil cases of forfeiture until FBI had completed all its other criminal investigations into the 1MDB scandal.

On 5th September, DOJ responded to the opposition of the defence lawyers in the DOJ kleptocratic suits for the forfeiture of the 1MDB-linked assets for the freezing of the civil cases until completion of criminal investigations.

FBI/DOJ officials made the shocking revelation in court that information demanded by 1MDB mastermind Jho Low in the civil suits could result in potential witnesses being threatened, intimidated and indeed worse (to conceal, alter or destroy evidence) – painting a unflattering picture of the suspected criminals behind the 1MDB international money-laundering scandal.

Among the examples cited by the FBI/DOJ in court in California to justify its motion to freeze the forfeiture civil actions until completion of other criminal investigations into the 1MDB are the following:

• The arrest in August 2015 of three Malaysian law officials including a deputy public prosecutor, an official of the MACC and an official from the Attorney-General’s Chambers all of whom were working on the Special Task Force investigating the 1MDB scandal because of news reports relating to 1MDB published in the United Kingdom.
• The arrest of Khairuddin Abu Hassan, then an UMNO official, by Malaysian authorities in September 2015 after he announced that he intended to travel to New York to provide information about 1MDB to the FBI.
• The recent report that the driver of former Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, who opened initial investigations into 1MDB, was shot in public by two unidentified men.
• A number of individuals, who have provided information, have also expressed concern for their own safety or retaliation if the identities of certain witnesses, especially those located in certain foreign countries, were disclosed publicly.

These are very disturbing revelations which do not cast Malaysia and our efforts to combat and corruption in a good light.

Attorney-General Apandi should meet the US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions to try to clear up the contradiction between Apandi’s exoneration of Najib of any wrongdoing in the RM2.6 billlion “donation” in Najib’s personal bank on the ground that it was donation from Saudi Arab royalty from the ten “killer paragraphs” in the US DOJ’s latest 1MDB kleptocratic suits which debunk the claim that the donations were from Saudi Arab royalty or that RM620 million had been returned to the Saudi Arabian donor.

I am referring to Paragraph 339 to 348 under the section “$681 MILLION WAS TRANSFERRED FROM THE TANORE ACCOUNT TO AN ACCOUNT BELONGING TO MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1”.

Surely, the clearing of the Prime Minister as “MO1” and the cleansing of Malaysia’s reputation and good name from the infamy and ignominy of a “global kleptocracy” must be one of the priority tasks of Apandi as Attorney-General of Malaysia.