Jho Loh and Riza to appear in court

It's almost a month since we wrote anything on 1MDB.

The last being about SC's incompetence on July 27th here in which an "expert" claimed there is no need for SC supervision since it was issued abroad.

Earlier, there were three postings directly related to the DOJ filing here, here, and here.

Much have been covered, pro or con-sides of whether to judge Dato Najib as guilty for being the MO1 or allow the due process.

According to FMT report here, lawyer to Matthias Chang and Dato Husam Musa, Dato Zainur Zakaria claimed Riza and Jho Loh will appear in the US court today with regard to the DOJ filing.

Politicised

At the UMNO Titiwangsa Division meeting yesterday, Dato Johari Ghani gave a strong comment on 1MDB.

We have heard it before and excerpt from The Star report below:

"There is no value to my position if I conspire to defend any such leader and we should never forgive this individual," he said.

However, he was quick to say that one cannot be emotional in demanding action against any party without concrete evidence.

"We need to wait (for the investigation to conclude), because offences were also committed in foreign countries.

"This business transaction (of 1MDB) is very complex as it involves different jurisdiction, different countries and different laws," he said.

However, Johari said he holds on to the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty.

"We shouldn't accuse of anybody without any concrete evidence and we shouldn't use politics to topple any leader," he said.

Johari also took the opportunity to slam 1MDB's administration, saying the problems afflicting the state investment body was largely due to its poor business model and overall bad governance.

"The problem with 1MDB is that it is poorly managed. Mangkuk hayun (stupid).

"But let me be honest here. The weak management, despite being paid handsomely, will never admit mistakes when it occurs and it is us who have to answer for them," he said.

Early in the month, a friend sent us a link here to a blog by former Abrar Managing Director, Dr Wan Hasni that discussed the issue at length in 8 parts.

The attraction of the blog was it's approach and honesty "to focus on financial transaction matters and not the political matters."

In part 6 here, where he offers possible solution, he wrote, "The biggest mistake of how we all treat the 1MDB affair is to politicize it."

The intention of Tun Dr Mahathir to raise the 1MDB is good so that Najib do not get sucked easily into a too-good-to-be-true or easy money financial schemes.

When it is politicising, conspiring to topple the government and taking a stand in conflict with past views and positions, it is a different ball of wax.

More so, Islam has rooms for leaders to mend their ways [read here].

On whether Najib had made a major mistake, thus the need to topple him, that is up for debate.

Those already judging him guilty say it should be done. The other side of the argument claims 1MDB had not made a loss and they are not making claim on the asset to be seized by DOJ.

In Part 8 here, where he discuss possible solution, Wan Hasni wrote:

The Malaysian AG has cleared Dato’ Sri Najib from any criminal wrong doings in relations to 1MDB. So let us accept this as a fact, until proven otherwise.

Wan Hasni explained DOJ claimed that the exercise is to return the money back to 1MDB, but it looks more to be the Arab money that got siphoned away.

Item 5 in Part 1 here explained it well.

Why did DOJ say that? Conspiracy? Bear in mind, we expressed our wariness of DOJ here.

Wan Hasni did wrote in Item 6 Part 1 that a class action by any one party will complicate matters. Wan Hasni felt the complainant to DOJ is Abu Dhabi, not Matthias and Khairuddin.

However, in the lawsuit involving Goldman Sach, is Matthias and Husam out to politicise it more?

In Part 8, Wan Hasni wrote: THE POLITICKING OF 1MDB ISSUES DO NOT SOLVE 1 MDB’S TROUBLE. IT ONLY AGGRAVATES THE SITUATION AND COULD POTENTIALLY PRECIPITATES ITS FAILURE, INSTEAD OF ITS SURVIVAL.

It would be considered as irresponsible politics to be willing to see a government entity fail and foreign government interfere in our affairs.

Wan Hasni's series is worthy read as he simplifies the financial issues for the layman:

Part 1: US DoJ & 1MDB Civil Suit
Part 2: The Transactions
Part 3: IPIC vs 1MDB saga
Part 4: 1MDB bonds
Part 5: The Brunei Amedeo saga
Part 6: 1MDB - What needed to be done: Politics
Part 7: 1MDB - What needed to be done: Economic management
Part 8: 1MDB - What needed to be done: Possible solutions

Conspiracy?

At the end of it all, most of Wan Hasni's recommendations are what PAC and MOF is doing. He also highlighted the risk of government guarantees for commercial purpose.

But the politicking is not ending till their objective to topple Najib is met.

YB Dato Ariff Sakmongkol of DAP applied article 117 of the M&A of 1MDB in his blame of Najib.

However, the operational part is what was made known to Najib and what was not made known could be something else. Najib or MO1 may have agreed in principle but execution that deviated from what was agreed was done by others.

Accepting donation is not necessary legally wrong but the receiver should be judicious to know where the money came from and be suspicious of unknown donors.

Anyway as Tun Musa recently revealed the good practices of political fund raising turned bad during Mahathir's time.

Undoubtedly, the onus is on accuser to legally prove Najib is aware of the wrongdoings and the source of donation is absconded money.

As far as the DOJ filing, it is 1MDB officials that is doing all the illegal transactions with full knowledge and they could be going around to absolve themselves.

It is also mentioned that one of the 1MDB official got a piece of the ADMIC money!

We recently met a corporate businessman who looks up to Mahathir with much adoration.

He told us Mahathir told him all these two years ago. That would be in 2014.

In the DOJ filing, all the transaction and complicated money flow occurred in three phases and in various tranches.

The first Goodstar phase occurred in 2009-11, IPIC Aabar in 2012 and final Tamore phase in 2013 was September 2013 after the general election.

Why did he waited till last year 2015 to voice his concern?

The likes of us knew he met the IPP taukeh in Argentina before the election and heard their complains.

During the election, the usual donors hardly contributed much to BN. A source in the know claimed Tan Sri Vincent Tan's donation was hardly six figure. Dato Danny gave more to DAP.

It was also heard that Najib was reluctant to accept some of the corporate figures donations because it comes with demands they are used to ask for decades.

They expect it to come with promises of contracts. That is why in the past stock market was bullish before election. It is supposed to be uncertain but they played the market up based on stories of promised contracts.

Perception can become real as bullish investors invested in the market will make sure BN win.

Maybe this time, smart alec Jho Loh was able to sell to Najib that he can raised some money without the strings attached. All he need to do was the opportunity and all looks clean and legit. 

Najib's mistake maybe for not being technically competent to understand. He over rely and trusted limited few. If, and still an if, that is the case, it is not necessary a crime.

We were aware that Mahathir met opposition leaders to plan out his political assault in early last year.

That was way before meeting bloggers including Raja Petra in London. That only made RPK felt the timing has to do with Mukhriz loss for Vice President.

Political motivation of Mahathir is obvious especially when Najib made a recent statement on his more consultative approach to foreign policy.

Nothing infuriate the old man than seeing Malaysia being friendly with Singapore and US. Off course, for political expediency, he has recently turned around to be critical of China. It is more for Edra than 9-dash line territory claim

We have seen plans for national re-consolidation and now resetting of government. All our life we have seen endless quarrels of Mahathir against sitting PMs and his Deputies.

Not again.

Repeating the same gets boring. This time let the rule of law takes its course, not power politics or street revolution.

Over the weekend, we have taken the liberty to re-read the filing again. Those interested to re-read can get it here.

An analysis by Cilisos sometime back [will find link] concluded that the information in the DOJ filing is almost the same with information in Sarawak Report.

Their poser was: Is SR still lying? Off course they are saying DOJ report is true so SR is not lying.

DOJ filing basically confirm transactions that flow in US dollar. However, are the reasons behind the transaction known or DOJ followed SR's story?

What will be Jho Loh and Riza's explanations?

It is still puzzling as to why two people that are supposedly intelligent and well educated at prestigous schools could be so dumb as to do a one or two-layered money flow to abscond money?

We would have done with several more with thrown in a couple more off-shore centres accounts.

Worse, they were using textbook scam to use similar named companies as cover.

Are they dumb and stupid or confident what they are doing are legal? Until it is explained well, public will not believed nothing illegal intended.

The due process will be when Jho Loh and Riza make their defense and unravel the other side of the story. If there are nothing, the criminal process will begin.

Wan Hasni did clarify on the jurisdiction and the relevant applicable US laws. He did his doctorate in the states and established Abrar in Connecticut to manage Arab funds.

But the country to do the criminal charges may be somewhere else. 

Awaiting news from US ...