Kuching: The Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) has been urged to uphold its moral and social responsibility by returning all monies it received from former Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Special assistant to Stampin MP and ADUN for Padungan Chong Chieng Jen, Sim Kiat Leng,
said SUPP should be reminded that it is not above the law and must be held to a higher moral standard than ordinary individuals.
“If other recipients, such as international superstar Leonardo DiCaprio, could return two high-value paintings worth a combined USD 12.2 million in connection with 1MDB, what makes SUPP so special that it does not have to return the money it received?” he asked in a statement.
His remarks followed the courts’ confirmation that funds in Najib’s AmBank account ending in **9694 were linked to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and formed part of a money-laundering scheme.
SUPP reportedly had, at the same time, previously received millions of ringgit from the same bank account.
Sim said, “This is not an issue of political donations, as the SUPP is attempting to spin.
“Rather, it concerns the fact that SUPP, as a political party, **cannot feign ignorance or remain oblivious to newly established and judicially proven facts surrounding former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Ambank account no. *9694,” he said.
He said, back in 2018, despite evidence showing that SUPP did receive funds from Najib Razak’s Ambank account no. ***9694, there was, at that time, no conclusive proof that the money in that account originated from 1MDB.
“As such, the court then dismissed the intended forfeiture of RM188,132.26 from SUPP’s bank account.
“This was not because the funds were cleared of any connection to 1MDB, but purely because the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission was unable, at that point in time, to establish a direct link between the funds and 1MDB,” he said.
However, Sim said, following more than seven years of trial, the court’s recent ruling is that the funds in Najib Razak’s Ambank account number ***9694 were indeed derived from 1MDB.
“This constitutes a new judicial fact that was only established after years of legal proceedings.
In this context, SUPP has, in effect, **received 1MDB funds when it accepted money from Najib Razak’s Ambank account no. *9694.
“In light of these developments, a bare denial that the funds were “not from 1MDB” is plainly untenable. It is also untrue to claim that the matter was fully resolved, as asserted by SUPP,” he said.
