KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 4): Readers cannot expect to get the truth from Billion Dollar Whale, the book on the 1Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB) fiasco, claims lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

Speaking to reporters at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex today, Shafee said  the bestseller was written for the purpose of a movie and "without the purpose of legality".

"You can't expect truth [from something] that is intended to be a movie," said Shafee. "These authors are not lawyers... They wrote the book without the purpose of legality," he added.

Commenting on a section in the book which stated that former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was aware of monies being deposited into his account, Shafee said: “Of course, that’s the case.”

"[But] that is not the issue... [The authors] don't understand that Najib is saying he doesn't know [if] the money was from illegal proceeds — and [there is] a world of difference [between the two]

"If the authors chose to be naive or uneducated, they will remain so," he added.

Shafee also recommended readers of the book to instead comb through all three volumes of the US Department of Justice reports on 1MDB as they are "more clinical".

Shafee was speaking to reporters after the case management involving Najib, who faces 32 graft-linked charges over misappropriation of over RM2 billion in 1MDB and RM42 million in its former unit SRC International Sdn Bhd.

Shafee is leading Najib's defence team in the case, which has been adjourned for management on Oct 31.

Billion Dollar Whale was co-written by Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope and Nicholas T Wright. WSJ has consistently reported on the 1MDB saga since it first surfaced in 2015.