I AM surprised by (former de-facto law minister) Datuk Zaid Ibrahim’s new line of thinking but could he influence a single person to change his or her mind that former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak is not guilty of corruption in the monstrous mega multi-billion dollar 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB) scandal?
I am surprised by Zaid’s change of stance especially as it came after the widely-reported 100-page judgement of Justice Datuk Azimah Omar in former Attorney-General Mohamad Tan Sri Mohamd Apandi Ali’s defamation suit against me was made public last week.
Forefront in my mind is the question how Zaid, a former Cabinet Minister, could change his mind on Najib and the 1MDB scandal after reading Justice Azimah’s judgement? Or had he not read the Azimah judgement yet?
In his Facebook, Zaid said:
“Now, I am convinced Najib was lied to. Not only by Jho Low but also by his officers. He was misled by his officers in 1MDB and lied to by Goldman Sachs and Aabar Investments in Abu Dhabi.
“So the loss of billions of ringgit, in my opinion, was not because of Najib’s fault or in other words, he was not the one who planned it.”
Did Najib tell Zaid all this as well as the version that he as the prime minister was not the mastermind of the 1MDB scandal – and if not – how could Zaid come to such a conclusion?
One of the most salient points in the 1MDB scandal which had been in the public domain for a decade is that Najib had never condemned Jho Low or anybody else for the 1MDB scandal.
For that matter, the leaders of UMNO and the Barisan Nasional (BN) have never condemned the 1MDB scandal although a former US Attorney-General had described it as “kleptocracy at its worst”.
Can Najib and the leaders of UMNO and the BN present and the past going back to the Najib premiership, explain why they had never condemned the 1MDB scandal although it was the cause for the whole world to regard Malaysia as a kleptocracy? – July 29, 2022
Veteran lawmaker and former DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang is also the MP for Iskandar Puteri in Johor.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
