The Cabinet meeting today should endorse the BBC admission by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan that “MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1” (“MO1”) is Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and it should authorize the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar to re-open police investigations into the 1MDB scandal taking into account the information in the DOJ forfeiture lawsuit.

This is for two reasons: Firstly, at least two Ministers, namely the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong and the Minister for Housing and Local Government, Datuk Noh Omar have expressed ignorance of the identity of “MO1” when asked by the press after Abdul Rahman’s BBC interview.

Secondly, the reasons given by Abdul Rahman that Najib was not named directly was because he was not part of the investigation by the various United States agencies under the US Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative is not a good, credible or tenable reason for the Malaysian police to turn a blind-eye to the series of criminal conduct unveiled by the DOJ lawsuits on the embezzlement, misappropriation and money-laundering of US$3.5 1MDB funds for the forfeiture of US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Apart from the five persons named in the DOJ lawsuits – Jho Low, Raja Shahrir Aziz bin Abdul Aziz, “Eric” Tan, Khadem Abdulla AL QUBAISI and Mohamed Ahmed Badawy AL-HUSSEINY – four persons were referred by code, viz “MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1”, “1MDB OFFICER 1”, “1MDB OFFICER 2” and “1MDB OFFICER 3”.

The Government through Abdul Rahman has admitted that “MO1” is Najib. The identity of “1MDB Officers 1, 2 and 3” are also easy to identify, namely Casey Tang Keng Chee who served as executive director of 1MDB from the time of its creation until approximately March 2011 as “1MDB Officer 1”; Datuk Shahrol Halmi who was 1MDB chief executive officer from the beginning to March 2013 as “1MDB Officer 2” and Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, previously 1MDB’s general counsel and executive director of group strategy, as “1MDB Officer 3”.

Both Casey Tang and Jasmine Loo are on the Bank Negara “wanted list”, sought by the Malaysian authorities in connection with financial crimes with regard to the 1MDB funds.

In the case of Shahrol, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Report on 1MDB tabled in Parliament on April 6 had recommended action to be taken against him as he must take responsibility for the 1MDB global scandal. Read the rest of this entry »