Report on Najib based on solid info, not political, says WSJ

Wall Street Journal Hong Kong bureau chief Ken Brown says the business daily is very careful with reports linking leaders to missing funds. – Twitter screenshot, July 4, 2015.

Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday refuted the Wall Street Journal's claim that billions of ringgit were transferred into his personal accounts but the business daily has defended the article, saying the report was based on investigations and solid documentation.

In an interview with CNBC, WSJ Hong Kong bureau chief Ken Brown said they had been very careful with the report, given the nature that it is against a country's leader.

"We are very careful and we believe the investigation and documents we have are solid and come from reliable investigation and not a political investigation.

"It’s a significant story and we take it very seriously.

"Any time you say a leader of a country has been... or at least evidence shows money has been forwarded to his accounts, personal accounts, and tied to government deals, it is usually dramatic," Brown told CNBC.

He added that the documents they possessed had been shared with the Attorney-General and had also been seen by the prime minister.

When asked about the response from the Prime Minister's Office, Brown said it had merely stated that the prime minister had not taken any funds for personal use.

“And they are accusing their political opponents of coming up with this story to get him.

"And that is the same kind of stuff they said from our earlier story on 1MDB, the way the money the fund took in was used in the last election campaign by the prime minister, so the reaction been the same," Brown said of the response from the PMO.

When asked if he knew where was the source of the money, Brown said they “know what they know”, adding that one batch was from a unit of the Finance Ministry while another came through a private bank affiliated with Abu Dhabi, which he said had close ties with Malaysia and had backed some of the 1MDB bonds.

"Where the money went, we don't know. The trail that we have ends at the bank accounts (with) the prime minister's name on them."

The PMO in a statement earlier yesterday called the WSJ expose a political sabotage and work of "certain individuals" out to undermine the confidence in the economy, tarnish the name of the government and remove a democratically elected prime minister.

In their reports yesterday, both WSJ and whistle-blower site Sarawak Report had quoted from documents from the 1MDB probe carried out by the Malaysian government, with Sarawak Report claiming that the A-G was also aware of the information.

The documents show that US$700 million (RM2.67 billion) was moved among government agencies, banks and entities linked to 1MDB and finally ending up in the prime minister's personal accounts in five separate deposits.

It said that the largest transactions were deposits of US$620 million and another one for US$61 million in March 2013, two months before the general election.

- TMI