Prove money was returned to Saudi royals, says Kit Siang

© Provided by The Malaysian Insider A picture provided by the Saudi Press Agency shows Saudi King Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud (right) meeting Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the royal palace in Riyadh yesterday. Najib says King Salman is…DAP today asked Putrajaya for proof that the billions of ringgit of "donation" received by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in his personal bank accounts had been returned to the Saudi royal family.

© Provided by The Malaysian InsiderIts parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang (pic, right) said it meant nothing that Najib’s ministers were "ecstatic" over the success of Najib’s visit to Saudi Arabia.

He said their argument that Najib would not have received "VVIP treatment" during his visit if the RM2.6 billion political donation had been fraudulent "did not wash".

There were still reports that Najib had received over US$1 billion (RM4.13 billion) in his account, the Gelang Patah MP said.

"Even more pertinent is The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on March 1 that deposits into Najib’s personal bank accounts totalled more than US$1billion and not just US$681 million (RM2.6 billion) as earlier alleged," he said in a statement.

Referring to the WSJ report, Lim cited two people familiar with flows into Najib’s accounts and a person familiar with one overseas probe who were quoted as saying most of the money beyond the previously identified US$681 million had arrived in 2011 and 2012.

"WSJ also claimed that most of the US$1 billion originated from 1MDB, and not from Saudi Arabia," Lim said, referring to state-owned investment firm 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), which was Najib’s brainchild.

WSJ also reported that "according to those familiar with their probes", international investigators had found no evidence that any of the US$681 million deposited into Najib’s accounts came from Saudi Arabia.

"What is significant is that Najib has not dared to sue WSJ for all the allegations about the gargantuan sums of money deposited into his personal bank accounts," Lim said.

Lim also asked what Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali, who said in January that Najib had returned RM2.03 billion of the RM2.6 billion to the purported donor from the Saudi royal family several months after receiving the money, had to say about this.

"Now that the allegation has mushroomed from RM2.6 billion to RM4.2 billion, what has Apandi got to say?

"What amount of unused money had Najib actually returned to Saudi Arabia? And where is the documentary proof of the return of such sums of money?"

Following the news report, 1MDB hit out at WSJ for continuing to make unproven allegations.

1MDB repeated that it had never paid any funds into the prime minister's bank accounts, adding that this had also been declared by various Malaysian authorities.

In January, Apandi said there was insufficient evident to implicate Najib in any criminal wrongdoing in relation to the RM2.6 billion channelled into his bank accounts.