(July 8): The Umno Supreme Council must convene immediately, now that that The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has posted documents online detailing how some US$700 million (RM2.67 billion) was pumped into Datuk Seri Najib Razak's accounts, an Umno division leader said today.

Cheras Umno division chief Datuk Syed Ali Alhabshee warned that speculation among party grassroots would only worsen, the longer the council delayed their meeting.

"Now that the report is out, they should meet for the benefit of party members. Otherwise the members will think other things and won't understand the situation.

"Let them deliberate and come out with a decision and explanation for all the divisions. That is their duty as elected members of the highest body in Umno. They must be responsible," Syed Ali told The Malaysian Insider.

He said members would abide by the Supreme Council's decision regardless of the outcome, but it was crucial that the council meet as soon as possible.

"The longer you take to meet, the more assumptions members will make. So it's up to them to call us as soon as possible after they've made their decision, rather than let the party keep guessing."

On Monday, Syed Ali urged WSJ to make public the documents it had cited in its report alleging that billions of ringgit had been channelled into Najib's accounts.

He said the article was "rather damning" and cast doubt on Najib's credibility.

WSJ posted the documents online yesterday, and said it was sourced from a "Malaysian government investigation”.

The documents include a remittance application form, a cash deposit authorisation letter and charts outlining the flow of money.

In those forms, details of payment were listed as fund transfers for “CSR programmes”.

Some numbers, however, have been blanked out in the documents.

WSJ alleged the funds were transferred to Najib's personal bank accounts, just before the 13th general election.

Najib, however, denied he had taken any funds from 1MDB for personal gain and pinned the blame for WSJ's report on former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who has in recent months called for Najib's resignation.

A task force set up to investigate the claims revealed it has frozen six bank accounts in its probe so far and also seized documents linked to 17 bank accounts at two banks for further investigation.

Although the statement issued by the task force did not name the banks involved, nor did it state if any of the accounts belong to the prime minister, sources told The Malaysian Insider that three out of six bank accounts frozen belonged to Najib, while two others belonged to SRC International and Ihsan Perdana. – The Malaysian Insider