Our comment

The question that many are asking is whether Malaysia IS being led by genuine Muslims at this time?

Surely, a bunch of thieves, who are unable to provide any sensible defence against damning criminal accusations, ought not be considered proper practising Muslims or worthy of any other faith?

To the contrary, Malaysia is full of pious Muslims, who have expressed themselves shocked at the criminal behaviour of this bunch of looters, now so loud to call themselves holy and to cosy up to PAS for protection.

These shocked Malay Muslims have moved to support the opposition alliance, now led by the former Muslim Prime Minister of twenty years – with all sides united in disgust at the irreligious behavoiur of the self-praising fellows around Najib who are insisting they are above the law.

As for Annuar’s ridiculous scare-mongering about bombing and the like – he should remember that the US has for decades been a friend to Malaysia and a country should take note of a caution from its allies, in circumstances such as the one his boss has dragged the country into, rather than rejecting it with brainless talk of plots, conspiracies, invasions and the like.

Our comment

IGP Khalid must resemble Donald Trump to work for – and not only because he thinks he is an autocrat.

It is because the IGP can always be relied upon to open his mouth and not necessesarily in his own favour.  At a press conference last week the IGP acknowledged that the alleged police protection racketeer known as Gopi was his “family friend”.  Not only he, but his son and his brother in law had received calls from Gopi in recent weeks (several in the case of his son).

Also to receive several calls were a number of the IGP’s most senior vice squad colleagues, as Sarawak Report detailed in a subsequent article.

Now, the IGP is changing his story.  It seems Gopi may have just been someone he met at a party and handed his number to!  A passing acquaintance… he can’t quite remember.

“Let’s see if they can pin anything on me” the IGP concluded, using the classic words of a gangster instead of a cop!

Any lawyers out there who fancy the chance to represent this garralous chap?

Our comment

Sarawak Report would like to thank the IGP for his generous invitation to visit him in Malaysia, in order to pass information.

However, we do note his refusal to offer ‘safe passage’, which we have to admit provides a slight deterrent.

After all, whilst he claims the information we have provided on corrupt payments to UMNO, prosecutor Shafee and others is “hearsay”, he has at the same conference admitted that our story about his family friendship with a protection racket gangster was correct.

London is by and large a safe and comfortable place, where police chiefs tend to avoid socialising with gangsters and officers refrain from beating up detainees in jail (there are rather a lot of stories about deaths in custody emanating from Malaysia).

So, since the IGP is the man who can provide safe passage and is now openly refusing to do so, we fear that we are going to have to decline his doubtless well-intentioned and gracious offer.

However, we are happy to provide this Bukit Aman sleuth with some tips regarding the matters he is interested in.  To verify the information we have provided, he needs only to persuade his colleague the Attorney General to fulfil his constitutional duty and re-open the task force files on 1MDB.  There before him he will see all the material that we  have been quoting from, which is why anyone who knows anything about the case has been hiding under a stone ever since the material started coming out.

Our comment

It took Sarawak Report less than 24 hours to debunk Kuching’s sozzled drunk, Lester Melanyi’s garbled ravings last time he stuck his head above the parapet. We proved he was an entertaining liar and that his ‘sources’ were rubbish.

He clearly needs another handout and has therefore been prepared to conduct another of his ‘press conferences’.  Lester we forgive you.

Our reporting, to the contrary, is backed by the sort of evidence that UMNO’s bigwigs plainly do not wish to see discussed in court. Moreover, the details on the Shafee payment and others made by the Prime Minister were in the hands of many others, as UMNO bosses are well aware, before we received and published it.  The Wall Street Journal and ABC Australia published many of the details from these documents early last year.

So, we have our witnesses and a string of sources. If we did not, the whole of UMNO would have charged to court months ago eager to prove us and others to be lying.  In fact, why even bother go to court when you can publish the truth and unmask the liar, like we did when we dispensed with Lester within 24 hours back in 2015?

Rest assured, if Shafee had NOT been paid RM9.5 million we would have heard by now and been shown the proof.

So, Melanyi’s press conference and the reliance of this UMNO spokesman on such an embarrassing character is clear evidence they have a very big problem.  It shows the only ‘witness’ they have been able to bring to their defence over the PM’s corrupt payments is Ludicrous Lester, who has spent the last 5 years sloping round the bars and tea houses of Kuching and hardly knows his right hand from his left foot.

You bet he has asked for a ‘few weeks’ (read several months/forever) to produce the evidence to back up his latest rambling allegations.  He will have taken the payment for the press conference in advance however.

Our comment

Malaysia’s jailed opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, is to return to court following the emergence of new evidence that the case against him was perverted by a whopping RM9.4m bung to the lead prosecutor personally paid by the Prime Minister – presenting a clear conflict of interest.

Now, minister Nancy Shukri has made matters worse by confirming that the prosecutor, Shafee Abdullah, a private lawyer controversially drafted in by the government for the task, had agreed to do the job for a token fee, since he viewed the matter to be a “national service”.

National service because he is on a crusade against sodomy or national service because he wanted the opposition leader in jail to protect the Prime Minister, who had just paid him close on ten million ringgit?

The guilelessness of so many senior figures in BN, who damn themselves by their own remarks, is itself quite remarkable.  A decent court should have little problem ruling in Anwar’s favour, when you have ministers such as Shukri openly admitting the agenda was to put him away rather than making a fair judgement.

Our comment

“You help me with your vote, I help you with public money'”, Najib Razak earlier told voters in Sarawak.  He was on a stage and being recorded and clearly he simply saw nothing wrong in the blatant bribe.

Later, Parliament let him off.  After all, this Prime Minister has handed round public money without restraint to anyone who helps him keep power, including UMNO leaders.  Not only is it public money, but it is stolen public money that has cost in many cases double, because it was borrowed in the first place.

And if he is willing to bribe, who is surprised that he is also willing to blackmail with the same stolen public money?  Those who have protested at the abuse and theft from their public funds, such as FELDA, are now to be ‘punished’ by the removal of their allocated crumbs from the loot.

They should be proud to hold their heads high and say no to the stolen booty. After all, it is just a fraction of their own money that has been stolen from them and by making their stand against this corruption they are starting to stop the rot.

Things can be better and more prosperous if crooked politicians become a thing of the past. The FELDA abstainers should be praised for showing up Najib and their reward will be in better governance.

Our comment

Imagine holding a press conference to make a loud statement to the media about something that is not directly related to yourself, when you haven’t even thoroughly checked the facts.

This is what Musa Hassan, a former IGP has done.  What a nightmare it must have been to work for someone that careless in a top position.

If Musa had properly examined the facts (read Sarawak Report for example) he would have noted that from day one we made clear that one of Najib’s personal accounts (no 2112022009694), the one which received $681 million in March 2013, was closed the following August:

However, our article about Shafee’s payments quite clearly cites a later account Najib opened, into which money from SRC International was paid (a subsidiary of 1MDB).

This was account number 2112022011906, which remained open until we broke the scandal in 2015.  Getting these sorts of details right are the bread and butter of investigative work and something this senior officer ought to have been taught in police college.

It is lucky he is now retired and perhaps he should keep it that way, instead of digging his friends into deeper holes, when they themselves are plainly deciding that silence is the better option.

Our comment

Unlike the other penalties related to this investigation, which involved accounts managed by Jho Low, his alias Eric Tan or various subsidiaries of 1MDB, MAS has kept silent on the ownership of the illicit bank accounts managed by Credit Suisse and UOB.

In the absence of further explanation, Malaysians are therefore left with only one possible conclusion, which is that these two banks were managing accounts for Prime Minister Najib Razak.  Accounts which MAS has clearly linked to 1MDB and which therefore now must have been frozen by Singapore.

A Prime Minister ought not to be protected in such a way and treated as some sort of special individual who is above the law, particularly if Singapore wishes to claim that it is a proper international banking centre, run by rules.

Deals have clearly been done, which show the hand of political interference – death to financial confidence.  On the other hand, the compromise arrived at has clearly been designed not to let Najib off the hook completely and to open the way for eventual justice in this matter.

Singapore has confirmed the money in his accounts was dirty and has punished the banks’ failure to conduct due diligence on a politically exposed figure. They will not have released this money back.

The world is effectively waiting for Malaysians to show the guts and fortitude to deal with their own villains and chuck them out – then there will be a lot of money waiting to reward them!

Our comment

For a Finance Minister Najib Razak clearly has no idea whatsoever what constitutes an appropriate payment.

So, it’s fine to hand out money to his “brother” and the guy who handed him his present job.

Might Malaysian’s be allowed to ask where Najib got the money from this time?  Is it RM5 million grabbed from 1MDB or from some other public fund raided by Najib?

Or has he just raided the Ministery of Finance?

What is this money to be spent on that it is justified for a Prime Minister to just hand it over to his old political chum…?

Our comment

The public appointed Najib and the public pays Najib.

In return, Najib on assuming office swore to serve the public faithfully and honestly.

He was given a position of immense trust in charge of the nations finances, which the judge acknowledges he may have abused.

Yet this judge has opined that Najib is nevertheless not accountable to the public and that there is no duty of trust nor any obligation not to betray his terms of office, as would pertain to a teacher, parking officer or judge.

This law officer has decided that Najib is above the law and that democracy is about electing which dictator you want to have steal from you next – your money and your liberties included.

Malaysia needs to elect a government that will reform this despersate situation.