The deal with Riza Aziz is nothing more than a smokescreen

Gopal Raj Kumar

This so called “Settlement” is nothing short of an embarrassment and an attempt to cover a wasteful politically driven false prosecution by PH forces and NGO’s funded and driven by the former government of the US and its Department of Justice (DoJ).

Because of the international and political dimensions of Riza Aziz’s and Najib Razak’s cases, there was a need, in fact an obligation, on the part of the former AG Tommy Thomas to have informed parliament of the negotiations towards an attempt at settlement in the first place.

Furthermore, there was an obligation on the AG’s part to also request reasons from the DoJ in the US as to why they were returning part of the funds they seized under the asset confiscation regime and to account for the quantum of monies being returned against that of the total amount seized.

Was that done? Considering Tommy Thomas’s history of his knowledge of the law, I would suggest he was not even aware of this obligation.

There was an obligation on the DoJ, which remains to account for the reasons the money was seized in the first place, and the reasons as to why if those reasons for confiscation were lawful, then under what right, power or authority they were being returned in the way they were being returned to Malaysia, and in particular to whom in Malaysia.

1MDB is a statutory body. The money and assets of 1MDB do not belong to the Malaysian government per se but to 1MDB. Who at 1MDB would have and again on what authority accepted that money returned?

We have a bunch of keystone cops running around chasing their tails doing what is probably unlawful and unauthorised and at the same time claiming a feather for their caps in the process.

Did the former AG and the current AG request explanations from the US DoJ prior to accepting the returned money or have they compounded their problems by not doing what they ought to have done?

The deal with Riza is nothing more than a smokescreen, it would seem. Any competent lawyer acting for Riza would have asked for an acquittal because what Riza has been granted is nothing short of a farce to cover an embarrassment. False prosecution.

The evidence against Riza is based on a deal he did with the US authorities, as they do with asset confiscation cases, whereby the owner of the assets is invited to a compromise deal in order to avoid prosecution.

For Riza and his family to accept such expensive solutions to compromises does nothing to bring closure to these matters and in fact prolongs the suspicion something wrong was done when the evidence (or lack of it) suggests otherwise.