Paper trails show Musa-Chia link

Rafizi says his team will meet again with the ICAC tomorrow to hand over documented proofs.

PETALING JAYA: PKR said today it has paper trails showing alleged corrupt money transfers between Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman and several timber concessionaires including businessman Michael Chia.

Its director of strategy, Rafizi Ramli, revealed the documents to the press today showing fund transfers between 2005 and 2008 from supposed logging firms to overseas accounts linked to Chia.

Rafizi will lead a second team to meet with Hong Kong’s graft-busters tomorrow.

The documents included copies of telegraphic transfer credit receipts indicating payment of hundreds of thousands of US dollars to Chia’s HSBC account in Singapore, which the PKR whistleblower said would likely be payments from timber kickbacks.

The money transfers were described as “deposit for concession”.

Rafizi pointed out that Sabah timber laws expressly state that any matter related to logging activity was the sole jurisdiction of the state government, led by its chief minister.

“These transaction slips all show the transfer of money to Chia’s accounts from these firms linked to Sabah timber concessions, apart from further transfers made to purchase luxury items for Chia’s wife or cars, or transfers to Musa’s son,” he said.

Fall-out partners?

The papers were said to have been provided by Chia’s own partners in Hong Kong due to a possible fall-out, he added.

“These are documents that only they would have access to as they are from these British Virgin Island (BIV) offshore accounts. We cannot access them on our own.

“I trust that they are genuine and this is what we will surrender to the ICAC tomorrow,” he said at the party’s headquarters here.

He claimed the partners are ready to testify and meet with the island state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) should it open another probe on Musa and Chia.

Recently, the government claimed Musa had been cleared of any wrongdoing by the ICAC after it found insufficient evidence to link him to the RM40 million “donation” money to Sabah Umno.

Reopen the case

The letter by ICAC dated December last year was used by Umno to deflect accusations that the money belongs to the long-serving Sabah chief minister

Musa’s alleged link with Chia first exploded in the media following an April article by whistleblower site Sarawak Report, which claimed that the latter was caught trying to leave the Hong Kong International Airport with the RM40 million in Singapore currency.

At the time, Chia had allegedly told the authorities that the money was meant for Musa, kicking off a probe on the series of fund transfers from Malaysia to Hong Kong that was then believed to be the possible laundering of monies generated from illegal logging activities in Sabah.

Following a first meeting with Rafizi, the ICAC was said to have agreed to reopen the investigations if the PKR leader could provide fresh evidence.

Rafizi said the evidence he has should fulfil the ICAC’s request for more information to reopen the case.