Kadir in a blog post today said that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was still looking for SRC managing director Nik Faisal Ariff Nik Othman Kamil, its director Datuk Suboh Mohd Yassin, as well as Malaysian tycoon Low Taek Jho.
He also said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had been linked to SRC, now a Finance Ministry-owned company after it was transferred from 1MDB in 2012.
“According to media reports, Najib and another person linked to SRCI were supposed to have been charged last July with misusing the company’s money amounting to RM42 million but did not take place when then Attorney General, (Tan Sri) Abdul Gani Patail, was removed supposedly hours before the case was brought to court.
“His term was prematurely terminated on July 28 on ground of poor health,” Kadir said in his blog.
The former group editor-in-chief of government-owned New Straits Times said where investigations against Najib were concerned, “the general understanding is it concerns not 1MDB but SRC”.
This was based on news reports of a draft charge sheet against Najib in relation to SRC, which had taken a government backed loan of RM4 billion from the civil service pension fund Retirement Fund Inc.
But the authenticity of the draft charge sheet was denied by the MACC as well as new attorney-general, Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali, who abruptly replaced Gani on July 28.
Najib, as finance minister, oversees SRC.
Kadir said there was still something amiss if the people wanted by the MACC for investigations had absconded from Malaysia.
"If they have nothing to hide or if they are afraid of being charged, they should cooperate with the MACC and ask to become prosecution’s witnesses. But if they keep hiding and refusing to meet MACC, the impression will be created that they are hiding something or that they are guilty."
1MDB was cleared by the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) yesterday of wrongdoing in relation to making false statements. Bank Negara had been probing the state investor under the Exchange Control Act 1953 for making a false statement and had appealed to the AGC to reconsider its no further action call.
AGC, however, said there was no new evidence to warrant a review.
Kadir today said if investigations in Malaysia into 1MDB were "deliberately stalled or terminated" while probes into the firm in other countries were ongoing, this "might even strengthen the resolve of foreign investigators to uncover 1MDB’s money trails and their links to the Prime Minister and his associates".
Reports against 1MDB have been lodged overseas in Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK and Switzerland.
In the US, a Justice Department grand jury is also investigating purchases of luxury properties by people said to be close to Najib.
Noting the Malay rulers' recent statement for speedy action against wrongdoers in 1MDB, Kadir added that the attorney-general and his charges should "take the royal decree seriously or risk being accused of committing an act of disloyalty". – The Malaysian Insider
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