Shafee disputes ‘Whale’ author, insists book absolves Najib

(MMO) – Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah reaffirmed his claim that portions of Billion Dollar Whale demonstrated client Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s innocence in the 1MDB scandal, after a co-author said the lawyer misunderstood the book.

Shafee went on to accuse Tom Wright, one of two Wall Street Journal reporters who wrote the book, of contradicting his own book with subsequent remarks to the media.

The senior lawyer claimed to have read the book thrice and can pinpoint the specific discrepancies, before offering to debate Wright over the matter.

He asserted that Wright was asked specifically if he possessed documentary evidence that could be used to demonstrate the culpability, if any, of his client or fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, to which he said the author denied any responsibility to do so.

“In most parts of the book, he in fact actually confirmed that Datuk Seri Najib was misled by people like Jho Low and some Arab connection.

“I can sit down with the author and debate with him because I can cite within pages and paragraphs, that’s what he said. So I don’t understand how he became so inconsistent,” he told reporters in a press conference outside the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex lobby here.

He then turned around to say Wright and co-author Bradley Hope did not fully apprehend the complexity of the allegations surrounding payments deposited in Najib’s accounts.

Among others, he insisted they failed to understand the meaning of Najib’s denial and chose to interpret this as the former prime minister claiming not to know that billions had found their way into his private accounts.

“But what he is saying is, ‘I do not know the money that came in is from illegal proceeds’. There is a world of difference!” Shafee stressed.

Shafee said he cannot help if the authors choose to be intentionally obtuse, but suggested that the naivete was contrived so as not to allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.

“You can’t expect truth from a book that is intended to be a movie,” Shafee added.

In a radio interview on September 25, Wright mocked Shafee for saying previously that the book supported the view that Najib was misled by Low in the 1MDB corruption scandal.