Federal Bureau of Investigation starts probe on 1MDB, says WSJ

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, his lawyer Stanley Augustin said police remanded Khairuddin on grounds that the documents he handed over to French and Swiss authorities were false and downloaded from the internet.

Datuk Khairuddin Abu Hassan was scheduled to meet Federal Bureau of Investigation agents tomorrow, his lawyer Matthias Chang told The New York Times but was arrested in his Mont Kiara home on Friday evening.

But he pledged to cooperate with the police and said he would appear at Bukit Aman on Monday as requested.

This followed his move to lodge police reports against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, his wife Rosmah Mansor, their friend Jho Low, Bank Negara Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) Chairman Lodin Wok Kamaruddin, and all the Board members of 1MDB in Lyon, France; Berne, Switzerland; London, Singapore and Hong Kong.

“They want to stop him travelling and maybe to intimidate him”, Mr Chang said.

The government has called the money “political donations” from Middle Eastern sources but refuses to give more details.

Indeed, the rally was a clear indicator of how strong the Prime Minister’s grip on his ruling party UMNO is.

Joint investigations by the Police, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), and Bank Negara were launched to probe the matter while Najib, who is also Finance Minister, claimed innocence while threatening to sue WSJ over the report.

Citing the example of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the worldwide Criminal Court to be tried on various charges including those linked to the genocide in Darfur, Tun Mahathir said if a crime has some connection to a foriegn country, that country had the right to investigate and prosecute the crime, the Malaysian Insider reported.

Mr Najib and the company are under fire over allegations that perhaps more than $US1 billion ($1.4 billion) went missing from overseas deals involving 1MDB, which is now struggling under massive debts.

He dismisses them as a conspiracy to unseat him. Last month, tens of thousands of protesters paralysed Kuala Lumpur with a two-day demonstration to demand Najib’s resignation and reform of Malaysia’s 58-year-old regime whose critics accuse it of repression, corruption and electoral chicanery to stay in power.