Prime suspect arrested in Banker's murder

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian police on Monday said they had arrested their main suspect in the shooting death of a veteran banker on the streets of Kuala Lumpur nearly two months ago.

A banker being gunned down in broad daylight unnerved Malaysians living in a country with very strict gun control laws and underscored that the city was undergoing a crime wave.

Police said their suspect is a 44-year- old ethnic Chinese man. They did not provide his name but said he is nicknamed “Sei Ngan Chai” or the “four-eyed boy” in Cantonese, meaning someone wears glasses. Police said they have no motive. Under Malaysian law, a person convicted of murder can face death penalty.

The suspect could not be reached for comment.

Bahrain-born Hussain Ahmad Najadi, who was killed on July 29, founded the Arab Malaysian Development Bank Bhd in 1976. It morphed into AMMB Holdings Bhd, which is now the fifth-largest bank in Malaysia by assets. Mr. Hussain, who sold his shares and exited the bank in 1982, ran AIAK Group, which adviseS about on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, mostly to clients based in Malaysia and the Persian Gulf region.

The police said they acted on public tip and their own police work to arrest the suspect from a house in the Taiping district in the northern state of Perak, which is about a two and a half hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. The police also arrested two other ethnic Chinese men, aged 31 and 26, on suspicion of harboring the murder suspect, the police statement said.

“We will continue with the investigation,” Ku Chin Wah, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of Kuala Lumpur’s police, told The Wall Street Journal.

Days after the murder, the police released images of the prime suspect, captured by a close-circuit camera, and launched a nationwide manhunt.

P. Sundramoorthy, a criminologist who teaches at the University Science Malaysia, said the arrest “will have some impact on boosting public perception on safety.”

Cases of violent crime have risen to 15,098 in the first half of 2013, compared to 14,811 at the six-month mark in 2012. In the first six months of this year, 322 people were killed. That’s up from 291 murders in same period last year.

Mr. Hussain’s murder was one of several high-profile shootings in Kuala  Lumpur that have prompted many ordinary citizens to take safety precautions, such as trying to avoid being out late at night.

To beat back crime, the police have started cracking down on criminal gangs. For example, last month in a raid in the northern city of Penang, which has recently seen several murders, the police gunned down five suspected gang members in a shootout. Police have has since arrested hundreds of suspected criminals and increased night patrols in the cities throughout Malaysia. The Home Ministry has also released a list naming 49 gangs and said it has identified 40,313 gang members, many of whom are believed to be involved in murder, extortion and drug trafficking.

“Still there is plenty of room for improvement, as the police need to address all the crimes with same speed as they usually do in high-profile cases,” Mr. Sundramoorthy said.