“No Element Of Corruption”? – BN’s Ridiculous Claim!

Sarawak Report

Ooops! There was a business association between Musa and Chia after all acknowledges Nazri!

Faced with overwhelming evidence and a criminal enquiry in Switzerland, BN have started admitting to its involvement in the Michael Chia money trafficking scandal linked to Musa Aman, the Chief Minister of Sabah.

Musa had previously claimed he had:

“no business associations whatsoever with an individual named Michael Chia”

However his friend and political ally Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz has now issued a parliamentary answer that attempts to own up and get Musa off the hook at the same time:

““The funds were contributions to the Sabah Umno liaison body and not for the personal use of the chief minister,” stumbles Nazri, a Minister in the PM’s Department.

What this astonishing admission has done of course is drag the whole political party of UMNO into the same scandal that once only tainted the Chief Minister!

Nazri Aziz, Minister responsible for the MACC

However, Nazri is struggling to claim that somehow because the money was apparently for UMNO:

“no element of corruption was proven in this case”!

The rest of the world is of course still laughing at such a plainly ridiculous claim.

Tian Chua himself was left scratching his head with bemusement.  After all, if the money was destined for UMNO Sabah how could this matter have NOT been corrupt?  In fact it is doubly corrupt!

Tian Chua was left asking:

“Even if the money was not for Musa but for Sabah Umno, MACC still hasn’t explained why no graft is involved. What is the money for and why is a businessman giving to money to Sabah Umno?”[Tian Chua - Malaysiakini]

So far no one from BN/UMNO has provided an explanation!

And so far the MACC have yet to make any comment themselves.  Malaysia’s BN government needs to answer why is a supposedly independent anti corruption commission is spoken for or indeed answers to a politician? Let alone a Minister from the ruling party!

Yes Musa DID have a business dealing with Chia, admits Nazri

Come out and admit your previous statement disowning Chia was a lie please Musa. Nazri has admitted he was on his way to see you with a bag containing RM 40 million in cash!

The key point from this acknowledgement by Nazri is that it damningly admits that Musa was in fact deeply involved in this dirty trafficking attempt to bring RM40million in a bag over to Sabah from Hong Kong.

After all, Musa Aman is the Chairman of UMNO Sabah.  He was therefore the recipient of the money and was clearly up to his neck in “doing business” with the courier Michael Chia.

Nevertheless, Nazri seems to be claiming that since Musa merely had a political purpose for this cash, then that this was somehow OK and no corruption was involved!

Why is it acceptable that instead of spending the money on personal luxuries Musa was spending it on securing his own political position?  In both cases Musa’s personal interest is clearly involved and now it turns out that BN are admitting their own political party UNMO is corrupt as well!

Dirty Money

Chia next to lawyer Richard Christopher Barnes, who was also linked to Musa Aman and his network of bank accounts

Mr Nazri’s statement does nothing to address the issue of what the Chairman of UMNO Sabah (Musa Aman) was doing authorising a young man to traffic RM40million in cash in a bag out of Hong Kong?

If this was legitimate money for a legitimate political purpose why didn’t the Chairman of UMNO simply transfer the money from an existing bank account registered to UMNO and place it into UMNO’s Sabah account?  This way all the legitimate withdrawals for the money could have been documented and accounted for!

Why stuff it in a bag and smuggle it only to be picked up by the Hong Kong authorities, who have been demanding cooperation from Malaysia’s Attorney General ever since?

These are the very questions, of course, that have landed young Michael Chia in the High Court of Sabah at the moment and we ask therefore why his boss in this transaction, who the PM’s spokesman has now admitted was Musa Aman, is not standing in the dock next to him?

And the conclusion is so very plain that Sarawak Report has no fear in publishing it openly.  This was dirty money that did not legitimately belong to UMNO and was being used for a secret purpose that UMNO did not want to admit to.

Since this whole trafficking affair took place just in advance of the 2008 election we can all come to the clear conclusion that the purpose of the money was bribery during that election.

Tell us more please!

Since Mr Nazri is admitting that the money was for UMNO (his own political party) why has he not provided any explanation as to its origin or how it was due to be spent?  Certainly Musa now has to make a statement now that the secret is finally out!

Or perhaps they are attempting to suggest that the USD16 million in notes was just a kind gift UMNO were planning to accept from young Michael, no questions asked?  If so, we have news, which is that accepting money from someone, who has received numerous timber concessions and barging monopolies from the government, without asking any questions about its origin amounts to blatant, criminal corruption and conflict of interest!

Either these UMNO folk are sadly incredibly stupid and should be sent back to school instead of holding public office or they must think that the rest of the world is incredibly stupid if they really think this admission by Nazri “clears” Musa. What it actually does is land Sabah’s Chief Minister and now his entire party in an almost impossible position should they ever face an impartial judge.

Our evidence

Sarawak Report has published a great deal of evidence about the origin of this money, which had filtered into the Hong Kong bank accounts managed by Chia. We have passed on a mass of evidence that is in the hands of the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission to the Swiss Federal Authorities, who have now also launched a criminal investigation into the bank UBS who had managed many of these accounts.

“Deposit for Logging Concession” – the reason this company, which is linked to a Sabah timber tycoon, gave for putting money into one of Chia’s accounts!

What these accounts plainly show is that tens of millions of dollars were being paid in by companies known to be connected to the timber tycoons who had been receiving concessions from Musa and that money was leaving these accounts into a Swiss account controlled by Musa.

Simultaneously money was also being drawn from these accounts (managed under the name of Chia and his accomplices) by Musa’s own two sons who were studying in Australia!

If the above does NOT constitute blatant, obvious and glaring corruption of the plainest kind Mr Nazri is going to have to explain what does!

Yet another of the transfers of huge sums to an account run by Michael Chia – USD$1,308,900 as another “Deposit for Concession”!

BN/UMNO are plainly living in hope that the Swiss Prosecutors will move sufficiently slowly for them to get their election done before they reach their judgement.  How they stop people making their own judgement is a different matter.