Malaysian police stand at the entrance to the home of former Prime Minister Najib Razak in Kuala Lumpur on May 16 night. (Source: Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images)Hanoi (VNA) - Malaysian police on May 17 searched former PrimeMinister Najib Razak's home and other places linked to him in connection with aprobe into the corruption scandal at the state fund 1Malaysia DevelopmentBerhad (1MDB), said a senior police officer.
Amar Singh, Director of the Commercial Crimes Investigation Department,said that searches were continuing at places, including the former PM's officeand a residence he
had used.
The police are in the midst of collecting information, and they willhave more details once they have completed the search, he said, confirming thatthe searches were related to investigations into the 1MDB scandal that haddogged Najib since 2015.
Speaking at a news conference on the same day, Malaysia’s new PM MahathirMohamad said he supposed the police have enough reasons to raid the placeslinked to Najib.
The multi-billion-dollar scandal over the fund founded by Najib is beinginvestigated by police in at least six countries, including the US. Najib hasdenied any wrongdoing.
Najib started the fund in 2009 to stimulate Malaysia’s economic growththrough global partnerships and foreign direct investment. However, the fundbecame the centre of a money laundering scandal, allegedly causing losses of upto 3.7 billion USD and leading to probes into the financial markets in severalcountries such as the US, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia and China.
The Federal Court of Malaysia on April 9 affirmed that there was noevidence to accuse 1MDB leaders and Najib was not involved in the scandal.
The ruling was expected to give a boost to the ruling Barisan Nasional(BN) coalition of then PM Najib in the recent general election. But, theopposition alliance Pakatan Harapan (PH) and the Malaysian Islamic Party ofMahathir won 113 seats of parliament’s 222 seats while the BN secured only 79seats.-VNA
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