Najib Razak, Malaysian Ex-Prime Minister, Questioned Over 1MDB

© European Pressphoto Agency

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia—Former leader Najib Razak was questioned for more than four hours during his first visit to Malaysia’s antigraft agency, as investigations continued into a multibillion-dollar scandal that helped topple his government.

Shukri Abdull, chief of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, said Tuesday that Mr. Najib hadn’t been arrested but was summoned to record a statement on how $10.6 million passed into his bank accounts from a former unit of state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB. Mr. Najib spent hours at the agency’s complex in Putrajaya, the country’s administrative capital, before leaving midafternoon in a white passenger van flanked by police.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad—Mr. Najib’s former mentor—ordered a sweeping investigation into the allegations swirling around 1MDB, after his election win on May 9. It was a stunning turnaround. Mr. Mahathir, who is now 92 and led Malaysia for 22 years before retiring in 2003, previously engineered Mr. Najib’s rise to the premiership in 2009.

But after allegations emerged in 2015 that billions of dollars had been siphoned from 1MDB, Mr. Mahathir turned against his protégé and the ruling coalition that governed Malaysia since independence in 1957. Instead he teamed up with some of his old foes in the opposition in his bid to hold Mr. Najib to account.

Mr. Najib, 64, arrived at the complex about 9:40 a.m. local time, summoned to answer questions on one specific part of the inquiry: how 42 million ringgit, currently worth $10.6 million, passed into his account from SRC International. SRC was initially established in 2011 as 1MDB’s vehicle for overseas energy investments. It was later placed under the Finance Ministry’s control in 2012.

When he was leaving, Mr. Najib said he would return for more questioning on Thursday. He said he had expanded on the answers he had submitted to an earlier investigation into SRC in 2015. “I want to thank the team who took my statement because they did it professionally. And it will be continued back on Thursday, a big portion has finished,” Mr. Najib said.

Mr. Najib has previously denied any wrongdoing in connection to 1MDB, as has the fund. Malaysian investigations carried out during Mr. Najib’s premiership cleared him.

Later, Malaysia’s Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said Mr. Najib’s government had misled the public over the extent of the problems at 1MDB by paying 6.98 billion ringgit ($1.75 billion) of the fund’s debt obligations since April 2017, instead of the fund covering the sum through a rationalization plan, as it had claimed. The figure includes interest and coupon payments, in addition to a 5.05 billion ringgit settlement paid to Abu Dhabi-based fund IPIC, Mr. Lim said. “It is clear that the previous government has conducted an exercise of deception to the public about certain hot button issues, especially 1MDB, and even misrepresented the financial settlement to parliament,” he said in a statement.

1MDB officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

U.S. authorities allege that at least $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB between 2009 and 2015, including $681 million allegedly received by Mr. Najib, whom lawsuits in the U.S. referred to as “Malaysian Official 1.”

Mr. Mahathir has vowed to get to the bottom of what happened and has appointed or sought the advice of a number of officials sidelined during Mr. Najib’s administration.

Among them is former attorney general Abdul Gani Patail, who was on the cusp of filing criminal charges relating to SRC against Mr. Najib in 2015 before he was abruptly removed from office, according to people involved with drawing up the charges and documents reviewed by the The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Abdul Gani now co-leads a new task force investigating the 1MDB scandal.

Mr. Shukri previously served senior roles in the antigraft agency before being pressured to leave in 2016 after Mr. Najib’s government shut down an initial round of investigations into 1MDB.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Mr. Shukri choked back tears as he recounted how he fled to the U.S. after receiving a bullet in the mail at his home. “We wanted to bring back money that was stolen, [back] to our country. Instead, we were accused of bringing down the country, we were accused of being traitors,” he said.

Once in the U.S., Mr. Shukri said he approached officials there to raise the alarm on the 1MDB case, after spreading rumors that he would instead go to Saudi Arabia. Later, he said he felt he was being tailed, and went to New York, where he sought out acquaintances in the police department. “I got protection from the NYPD and they provided me with three bodyguards,” Mr. Shukri said.

Some people close to Mr. Najib have said the new government is attempting to publicly shame him after a hard-fought election campaign. One described his treatment as unbefitting for a former prime minister. Mr. Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, issued a statement accusing authorities of leaking pictures of bags and jewelry “to provoke public anger.”

Last week, police searched Mr. Najib’s home in the middle of the night and another site linked to his family. They hauled off 284 boxes of luxury handbags and 72 suitcases stuffed with cash and jewelry. The new government also issued a travel ban on Mr. Najib and his wife.

“It is our hope that the authorities would observe the rule of law and due process, to avoid a public trial,” Ms. Rosmah said.