This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on April 13, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad accuses the beleaguered 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) of using similar names to that of genuine large companies, in order to make it seem as though the strategic investment fund was conducting legitimate business dealings with those firms when it was not necessarily the case.

The former premier said this in response to the denial on Monday by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) and its unit Aabar Investments PJS (Aabar) that it had any connection with a British Virgin Islands company with a similar name. Both IPIC and Aabar clarified that they had no dealing with the British Virgin Islands-registered Aabar Investments PJS Ltd (Aabar BVI), a company with which 1MDB had questionable deals worth several billion ringgit.

Questions pertaining to the legitimacy of 1MDB’s deals with Aabar BVI were raised after the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) report on the fund’s dealings was released last week.

Dr Mahathir scathingly said during an exclusive interview with The Edge Financial Daily, “1MDB is forever having to explain [things]. It [1MDB] uses names [of companies] in order to make it sound as though it is dealing with legitimate companies.

The 90-year old political leader explained, “There’s a company called Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners, but it doesn’t belong to the Blackstone Group. Blackstone is the name of a company in the United States, and it has investments and all that, but [the company 1MDB has dealings with is] Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners BVI [British Virgin Islands]. It takes the name and then use that name and it gives the impression that it is dealing with a real company. Here it takes the name of Aabar [but] this is Aabar BVI”.

Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners and both IPIC and Aabar have been linked to 1MDB in two separate cases where problems have cropped up. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is the chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board.

Issues surrounding 1MDB include Australia’s ABC News’ recent report that US$1.05 billion or about RM4.2 billion had been deposited into Najib’s bank accounts from Saudi Arabia’s ministry of finance, Prince Faisal Turki Bandar al-Saud, Tanore Finance (BVI) and Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Ltd (BVI).

In the second case, a sum of US$472.75 million (RM1.84 billion) that originated from Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Ltd (BVI) was deposited into the former chairman of Aabar BVI Khadem al-Qubaisi’s Luxembourg bank account between May 29, 2012 and Dec 4, 2012. Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Ltd (BVI) is the same offshore company which had pumped at least US$120 million (RM480 million) into Najib’s personal bank accounts between Jan 3, 2012 and May 23, 2012.

Dr Mahathir said, “So I don’t believe one word of what 1MDB says in its explanation for the money that it was supposed to have been paid to IPIC and Aabar.”

As a result of being implicated with 1MDB and Aabar BVI, on Monday, IPIC and Aabar made statements to the London Stock Exchange (LSE), stating that Aabar BVI was not an entity within their corporate group, and denied having received any payments from Aabar BVI or assumed any liabilities on behalf of Aabar BVI, after the PAC report named Aabar as part of the Abu Dhabi group.

“Both IPIC and Aabar confirm that Aabar BVI was not an entity within either corporate group,” IPIC said in a statement to the LSE.

Dr Mahathir added that the PAC report revealed all the wrongdoings at 1MDB all this while, and said that he felt that Najib was implicated in the wrongdoing.

The PAC had blamed former chief executive officer of 1MDB Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, and singled him out for the wrongdoing.

Commenting on the PAC report, Dr Mahathir highlighted that it lacked a minority report. He also noted that the auditor-general’s report on 1MDB has not been released. “It’s just trying to whitewash Najib, nothing more than that,” he said in conclusion.