KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 13 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the US’s Department of Justice (DoJ) should have asked him about allegations on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), instead of launching its civil action in 2016 to recover 1MDB funds when he was still the prime minister of Malaysia.
Testifying in his 1MDB trial in the Malaysian courts here, Najib accused the US DoJ of making an unprecedented move to file and publicise its civil forfeiture action on 1MDB, and said it caused the public to prejudge his guilt in the 1MDB matter.
“Yang Arif, I would also like to add that when I said it was unprecedented, unprecedented in the sense that the DoJ never takes action of such nature against a sitting head of government. They had never done it, but in my case, they made an exception.
“What they should have done is they could have engaged with me, and I could have responded to them,” Najib told the High Court.
He added that the US could have used the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 2002 (Macma), and said Malaysia could have responded to any allegations that concerns the US on the possible wrongdoings in the 1MDB case.
“Until today, I have never been charged in the US, until today, no charges levelled against me. As I told the court earlier, there was evidence — that will exculpate me — available, but the DoJ has locked it. So I think I’m right to say that the actions by the DoJ have been politically motivated,” he claimed.
When asked by his lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah on which US government was in place when the DoJ’s 1MDB action was taken, Najib claimed: “It was under the Democrat government and we know Soros had a big influence on the then Democrat government. As we are talking now, there is a big movement in Washington to overhaul the DoJ because they believe the DoJ has been weaponised for political reasons.”
Earlier, Najib described the DoJ’s actions of filing the 1MDB forfeiture action as allegedly “irregular” and “deeply troubling”, given its own disclaimer that a civil forfeiture complaint is only an allegation of money being involved in or being proceeds of a crime and that such allegations are not proven until a court rules in favour of the US.
“However, the way the DoJ publicized the civil forfeiture action gave the impression that the allegations were established facts, creating a false narrative that prejudiced public opinion and caused premature judgment of my culpability.
“Even Loretta Lynch labelled it ‘the largest kleptocracy case to date’, hinting at my alleged involvement without due process or evidence,” Najib claimed, referring to then attorney general Loretta Lynch.
“Yang Arif, as we all know, perception is everything in politics, it’s even greater than the actual truth,” he said.
He claimed that sensationalised narratives were used to create a presumption of guilt against him before any court proceedings on the 1MDB matter.
On July 20, 2016, then US attorney general Lynch announced the US filing of civil forfeiture complaints — involving over US$3.5 billion allegedly stolen from 1MDB — to recover over US$1 billion assets associated with an international conspiracy launder 1MDB funds. Lynch was US attorney general during the 2015 to 2017 period.
