News reports that fugitive billionaire Jho Low had overhauled his personal website to focus on rebutting allegations against him in connection with the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal kept gnawing at me in the five-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Perth.
Why had Jho Low, described by two authors of the latest best-selling book on the 1MDB scandal, journalists of Wall Street Journal, Tom Wright and Bradley Hope in their book “Billion Dollar Whale” as “a silver-tongued con man”, made such a belated attempt at self-defence over the 1MDB scandal at such a late stage – five years after Clare Rewcastle Brown started digging up the 1MDB scandal, culminating in another best-seller on the 1MDB scandal, “The Sarawak Report – The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose”; more than three years after the Wall Street Journal expose of the RM2.6 billion donation in former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts; and more than two years after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) largest kleptocratic litigation to eventually forfeit US$1.7 billion of US$4.5 billion of 1MDB-linked assets transacted through United States financial system?
Was Jho Low’s overhaul of his personal website in self-defence over the 1MDB scandal the result of pestering from Najib, who must felt very lonely in his solitary defence through the social media in the past few months declaring his innocence of any corruption or criminality in the 1MDB scandal, which transformed Malaysia into a global kleptocracy.
Or was it because of the publication of two books on the 1MDB scandal, which became instant best-sellers – “Billion Dollar Whale” and “The Sarawak Report – The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose”?
But is Jho Low unaware that Najib has virtually zero credibility among the Malaysian public on the 1MDB scandal, and Jho Low’s has the peculiar dishonour of having even lower credibility than Najib as far as the 1MDB scandal is concerned?
How then can Jho Low’s revamped personal website add value and credibility to the tale of Najib and Jho Low’s innocence in the 1MDB scandal?
Jho Low should know that the two 1MDB bestsellers have greater credibility than his revamped personal website – with the stories about Jho Low’s personal email in Sept. 2009 that “looks like we have hit a goldmine” which started the 1MDB scandal and his email in March 2013 about the “681 American pies” – clearly referring to the deposit of US$681 million (RM2.6 billion) into Najib’s personal bank accounts.
The famous episode where Low tried to topple the DAP, and in particular the DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng in the 13th General Election was recorded in Chapter 30 of “Billion Dollar Whale”, as follows:
“But despite the huge expenditure, Najib remained stubbornly unpopular in Penang. At the Psy (whose song “Gangnam Style” was a global hit and was paid by Low to give a concert in Penang) concert, the prime minister went on stage, asking the concertgoers whether they were ready for the South Korean singer.
“’Yes’, they screamed back. Then he asked whether the crowd was ready for his coalition to take back power in the state.
“’No,’ they roared.
“Low’s gambit had backfired.”
Let me put to Jho Low bluntly, if he is innocent, he should return home to vindicate himself instead of being an international fugitive from more and more countries.
Clearly, if Najib had won the 14GE, Jho Low would have returned home and his billion-dollar superluxury yacht Equanimity docked in grand fashion in a Malaysian port, with the Prime Minister as the guest-of-honour.
Jho Low should know that he cannot be an international fugitive for life as the 1MDB noose is getting tighter.
Is Jho Low now hand-in-glove with Najib for a final power-play, to topple the Pakatan Harapan government in Putrajaya before the 15GE, with the revamp of his personal website as the spearhead of such a new campaign?
Let Jho Low answer: Is his revamp of his personal website the first blow of a new Najib-Low campaign to limit the damage of the 1MDB scandal by working for the toppling of the Pakatan Harapan government in Putrajaya before 15GE?
(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Perth on Tuesday, 18th Sept. 2018)