MAHATHIR: SHOW FOUR CORNERS IN FULL ON RTM

Government challenged to show the Australian television report about money deposited in Najib’s accounts.

(FMT) – Dr Mahathir Mohamad has challenged the government to re-broadcast last week’s Four Corners programme on Australian television so that Malaysians could judge for themselves whether it had proven Najib Razak’s innocence of corruption allegations laid against him.

The broadcast, last Monday, features an interview with Dr Mahathir, and revealed a letter to show that money paid into Najib’s accounts in 2013 had come from a member of the Saudi royal family.

Dr Mahathir described the letter as “an amazing case of prescience” as if the person, purported to be “HRH Prince Saudi Abdulaziz Al-Saud” knew in 2011 that in 2014 the existences of the “gifts” would be discovered and exposed and that explanations would be required.

The prime minister’s office has said in a statement that the Four Corners report had proven the truth of its assertions that a deposit of RM2.6 billion into his personal accounts in 2013 was a political donation for helping the Barisan Nasional election campaign.

Dr Mahathir said: “This is good news indeed. Now the government TV must broadcast the ABC news so that all the people will know how right Najib is. But don’t just broadcast only a part out of context. Show the whole ABC broadcast to prove Najib’s innocence.”

He also called for the government to set up “a proper neutral commission” to investigate the donation, to carry on from where a previous government task force had been “stopped from finishing their work”.

The task force comprised Gani Patail, then the Attorney-General; Zeti Abdul Aziz, governor of Bank Negara; Khalid Abu Bakar, the inspector-general of police; and Abu Kassim Mohamed, head of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

It was disbanded after Gani’s contract as Attorney-General was terminated on grounds of ill-health.

Dr Mahathir, who has led a year-long campaign to force Najib out of office, said government statements “in particular by the discredited politicians” were unconvincing.

Referring to a letter purportedly from the donor, shown on Four Corners, Dr Mahathir said the person who wrote the letter should be questioned about his source of wealth, his bank, and the manner of his transfers of the money to Najib’s private account.

Dr Mahathir said the letter was full of inconsistencies about dates, amounts of money and frequency of disbursement of money sent to Najib’s accounts.

He also questioned the use of a company named Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Ltd in the British Virgin Islands company whose existence has been denied by the US Blackstone Group.