It is going remain one of the mysteries of Malaysian politics as to why former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak decided to guillotine himself on the 1MDB scandal before a world media in his semi-aborted interview with Al Jazeera.
Najib had intended to vindicate himself as a great Prime Minister with his nine-year achievements and legacy in his interview with Al Jazeera, but at the end-of-the-day he had only succeeded in raising the question that apart from fugitive financier Jho Low and himself as the two masterminds of the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal, there may be a third “international mastermind” of the 1MDB scandal.
Is there a third mastermind in the 1MDB scandal as suggested by Najib in his interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday?
Najib is duty-bound to name any other “masterminds” of the 1MDB scandal public, as the monies involved taxpayers’ monies and also because it had brought Malaysia to the abyss of a global kleptocracy or has he manufactured his latest “fake news”?
The least that Najib had expected from his semi-aborted Al Jazeera interview was the avalanche of unfavourable articles and comments about his interview where he as good as committed hara kiri by guilloting himself in public, like Kee Thuan Chye’s “Another MO1 lie to cover up the last one?”, R. Nadeswaran’s “Where Art Thou, Arul Kanda”, Mariam Mokhtar’s “Najib was the best thing for Malaysia” and Bakri Musa’s “Liquidate 1MDB and appoint a special prosecutor to handle the mess”.
Be that as it may, MACC and other 1MDB scandal investigators should haul up Najib to question whether, apart from Jho Low and him, there is a third mastermind of the 1MDB scandal as suggested by Najib in the Al Jazeera interview – as this is completely new and unexpected.
Najib’s answer during the interview to the question why he had not re-opened high-profile murder cases, like Altantunya Shaariibuu in 2006, Hussain Najadi in 2013 and Kevin Morais in 2015, when he was still Prime Minister is most unsatisfactory.
On Altantunya’s murder, although Najib is right that the case went through the courts at the highest level in the Federal Court, Najib studiously avoided information as to why he was not interested in the important matter of motive in the Altantunya murder.
For this unsatisfactory answer, the authorities should re-open investigations into these high-profile murder cases, as well as the 2009 death of DAP aide Teoh Beng Hock when in the custody of the MACC.
(Media Statement (2) by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Parliament on Monday, 29th October 2018)