Apandi will be assured of a place in the 1MDB rogues’ gallery with Najib, Jho Low and Arul Kanda if he continues to defy national and international opinion and refuses to resign as Attorney-General
Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali will be assured of a place in the 1MDB rogues’ gallery with Najib Razak, Jho Low and Arul Kanda if he continues to defy national and international opinion and refuses to resign as Attorney-General.
When the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) on June 15, 2017 filed additional civil forfeiture proceedings to recover a total of US$1.7 billion of 1MDB-linked assets, making it the largest action brought under the US Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali came out with a statement within hours to declare that there was nothing new and to express his regret about “insinuations” against the Prime Minister in the DOJ’s latest 1MDB forfeiture suit.
Apandi was telling a lie to claim that “there was nothing new” in the additional litigation proceedings of the US DOJ, and this was why I issued a statement on June 16, 2017 asking whether Apandi had read the ten “killer paragraphs” in US DOJ’s latest 1MDB kleptocratic suit to forfeit 1MDB-assets which directly linked Najib’s RM2.6 billion donation to 1MDB, and if so, how could he suggest that there was nothing new?
I had said at the time that the additional US DOJ litigation on 1MDB did not make any insinuations about the then Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, but “open and direct charge … that the Prime Minister had lied when he claimed that the RM2.6 billion donations had come from Saudi Arabian royalty!”
I said Apandi cannot be more wrong when he suggested that there was nothing new in the expanded DOJ kleptocratic suit.
I said:
“Apart from the titillating and tantalizing information about what another 1MDB king-pin Jho Low did with the US$620 million which Najib was supposed to have returned to the Saudi Arabia royal donor, Apandi should ask whether Najib can continue as Prime Minister if he allows the ten ‘killer paragraghs’ in the latest DOJ kleptocratic suit to stand unchallenged.
“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.’”
The ten “killer paragraphs” referred to the transfer in March 2013 of US$681 million to the Kuala Lumpur account in AmBank of MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 from the Tanore account in Singapore, one of the 1MDB spider-web of accounts.
Para 341 said: “This account belonged to MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 and is the same account that in 2011 received US$20 million from the Saudi Account that was traceable to the Good Star Account, as set forth in Section II.G. It is also the same account that in 2012 received at least US$30 million from the Blackstone Account that was traceable to the Aabar-BVI Swiss Account and the 2012 bond proceeds, as set forth in Section III.E.3”.
Para 345 referred to the return of US$620 million on or about August 26, 2013 from the AmBank account of MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 to the Tanore accoiunt in Singapore.
Paragraph 346 of the DOJ litigation said:
“As discussed in Part VI.CC below, a portion of the US$620 million that MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 ‘returned’ to the Tanore Account was passed through various additional accounts controlled by TAN and LOW and was ultimately used to purchase a 22-carat pink diamond pendant and necklace for the wife of MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1. The necklace was commissioned in July 2013, after the jeweller met with LOW, HUSSEINY, and the wife of MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 in Monaco. The purchase price of US$27,300,000 was paid on or about September 10, 2013, using funds traceable to the US$620 million payment from MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 to Tanore.”
Apandi committed a grave dereliction of duty as Attorney-General in not directing that the various enforcement agencies pursue the leads on the 1MDB scandal from the latest US DOJ forfeiture litigation on June 15, 2017, and instead, claimed that there was “nothing new” and expressing regret about “insinuations” against the Prime Minister in the DOJ’s latest 1MDB forfeiture suit.
Apandi could have easily discovered whether there was any truth in these ten killer paragraphs in the latest US DOJ litigation if he had sought assistance from the US and/or Singapore authorities – which he and the enforcement agencies strenuously refused to do.
It was only after the historic watershed 14th General Election of May 9, 2018 which witnessed the first peaceful and democratic transition of power in Malaysia that the enormity of the criminality and moral turpitude resulting in the international money-laundering scandal, which had made Malaysia a global kleptocracy and an international laughing stock, could be unravelled.
The whole sordid tale of the 1MDB scandal has still to be told but what is clear is the shocking abdication of responsibility and loss of moral moorings of key government leaders.
Will Apandi rank with Najib, Jho Low and even Arul Kanda Kandasamy as the national rogues in the 1MDB scandal?
Whatever the outcome, it is just wrong and abhorrent that Apandi has refused to resign as Attorney-General.
When will the former Federal Court judge come to his senses and regain the decency to submit his resignation as Attorney-General without any further delay?