A DAP lawmaker has offered Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak free legal services to sue weekly magazine The Economist over a recent article which alleged that the premier would “steal” victory in the upcoming 14th general election.
Nga Kor Ming (DAP-Taiping) said the article’s headline, which read “Stop, thief! Malaysia’s PM is about to steal an election,” was unacceptable.
“This is unacceptable, these people in London insulted our prime minister as a thief. I will rip this apart!” he said in the Dewan Rakyat while tearing apart a paper printout of the article.
Nga then said what made him madder was that no one from BN had initiated legal action against the magazine.
“If you can’t afford legal fees, that’s okay. I, Beruas (Ngeh Khoo Ham), Puchong (Gobind Singh Deo) can give free legal services to Pekan (Najib) if Pekan does not want to be referred to as a thief.
“We will take legal action in London,” Nga said.
However, he said Najib and the government continued to remain silent over this slight, as well as the new issue of Indonesia’s Tempo magazine, which alleged that the seized 1MDB-linked superyacht Equanimity was owned by an individual close to the prime minister.
Switching gears, Nga then questioned why Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz was willing to pay a settlement to the US Department of Justice.
He was referring to a US$60 million settlement that Red Granite Pictures, of which Riza is the chief executive, reached with the DOJ in order to drop the department’s bid to seize the production company’s assets.
The DOJ had claimed that US$64 million in allegedly misappropriated 1MDB funds had been wired to Red Granite Pictures, and used to finance the production of films, including Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
“If this is fake news, why would he pay a settlement. This doesn’t make sense. There must be more to it,” the Perak DAP chief said.
Nga later got into a shouting match with Noor Ehsanuddin Mohd Harun Narrashid (BN-Kota Tinggi) after asking why the government was not trying to repatriate allegedly misappropriated 1MDB funds which were seized by the Swiss government.
Noor Ehsanuddin said there was no need to claim the money if none was missing.
“If the money is not ours, why would we ask for it,” he said.
The Swiss government had seized CHF104 million (RM430 million) of funds allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB and laundered through the Swiss financial system.
The Swiss government had planned to keep the money on grounds that there were no claimants.
A motion to repatriate the funds back to Malaysia is expected to be debated in the Swiss parliament on Thursday.
– M’kini
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