Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has stressed that the donation of RM2.6 billion deposited into his account is neither from a public fund nor the government’s strategic investment company, 1MDB.
He said the matter had already been verified by the MACC which had also found the donors.
“I have not committed any offence or malpractice, this has been explained at the Parliament by the deputy prime minister (Ahmad Zahid Hamidi).
“The donors have been verified and found by the MACC and the commission has also obtained their statements,” he said in an interview with TV3 tonight in conjunction with the Umno AGM.
The interview was conducted by Media Prima Bhd group managing editor of news and current affairs Mohd Ashraf Abdullah, the New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Bhd group managing editor Abdul Jalil Hamid and Utusan Group editor-in-chief Abdul Aziz Ishak.
Asked why the funds were deposited into his account, the prime minister explained that it was the donor’s wish and the donation was made in a personal capacity….
“But do not be confused. The account is in my name, but it is not like a personal account.
So, after a full nine months, the PM has finally sat down to a staged TV interview to ‘explain’ to the public that he has performed no malpractice in receiving a secret and anonymous donation into his personal account.
This is despite the fact that investigations are on-going, confirming that the PM expects to act as the defendant, prosecution, judge and jury (if the latter had not of course been abolished in Malaysia) in his own case.
There are very many problems with his excuses, not least the fact that such political donations are illegal.
However, the last sentence above is the most awkward one for him to justify, because if the Prime Minister is still saying that this was not an account for personal use then he needs to explain what happened to the money he sent back out of Malaysia again after the election.
Sarawak Report revealed in August that RM2 billion was transferred out of the AmBank account concerned and back into the Singapore Tanore Finance Corporation account on 30th August 2013, the day that the AmBank account in KL was closed.
If this money was not for personal use, how has it been deployed?