IN THE EYES OF INDONESIANS, NAJIB IS CONFIRMED GUILTY AS CHARGED: EVEN IN MALAYSIA’S OWN PARLIAMENT, NAJIB’S MEN DARE NOT ALLOW SEIZURE OF JHO LOW’S YACHT TO BE DISCUSSED, LAUGHS TEMPO

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The seizure of the yacht Equanimity by the Indonesian police at the end of February has heated up Malaysian politics once more because of the yacht’s links to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) corruption scandal. Gooi Hsiao Leung from the opposition party has reignited the issue.

On March 2, this People’s Justice politician wrote a letter to the Speaker of the Malaysian Parliament, asking him to summon Prime Minister Najib Razak to explain the position taken by Attorney General Apandi Ali in declaring he would not repatriate the luxury vessel from the waters off Bali.

Gooi’s letter was read out at the opening session last Tuesday of this year’s sitting of parliament, immediately triggering strong protests from politicians supporting the ruling National Front government coalition. “The pro-government parliamentarians tried to interfere,” Gooi, 45, said to Tempo a few days ago.

One of the politicians protesting about his suggestion is Datuk Bung Moktar Radin from the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the party Najib Razak comes from. Even though he acted alone, Moktar’s rejection proved quite effective. In contrast, although many other members did support it, Gooi’s suggestion was ignored. The Speaker of Parliament Pandikar Amin Mulia rejected the suggestion, saying it was out of order.

Pandikar, who comes from UMNO, said the House rules of the Malaysian parliament forbids questions from lawmakers which concern any matter currently under investigation. “There is a document stating the vessel Equanimity is a matter now being investigated. Accordingly, I cannot allow this to be discussed,” he declared.

Although he did not explicitly say so, Pandikar was referring to the ongoing investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which asked Indonesian police to impound the vessel. The FBI suspects this boat, owned by Low Taek Jho alias Jho Low, was bought with proceeds from the 1MDB corruption after the money had been transferred through various transactions in the US to the Cayman Islands.

Attorney General Apandi Ali-Najib’s choice following the removal of the previous one, who had insisted on investigating this corruption case-gave as his reason that this yacht, worth Rp3.5 trillion, had no connection to the government and hence need not be returned. “Why would the government try to reclaim something it does not own?” he told Malaysiakini two weeks ago.

The 1MDB corruption scandal was first emerged worldwide in 2015 through a joint investigation by The Wall Street Journal and the Sarawak Report after continually being questioned by opposition parties since 2010. Switzerland, Singapore, Thailand, the USA, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Australia, and the UK are all investigating this case because 1MDB’s assets are scattered over all these counties. The assets acquired from corruption were then bought and sold and broken up through several transactions.

– https://en.tempo.co