Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 2, 2018

LANGKAWI: Umno will have to return money to the government if it is found to come from troubled strategic development company 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday.

“We want to know whether the hundreds of millions of ringgit [sitting in Umno’s coffers] came from 1MDB. If it did, then it has to give it back,” he told reporters after attending a Hari Raya open house here.

He was commenting on reports that bank accounts belonging to Umno headquarters and Selangor have been frozen by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to facilitate its probe into the 1MDB scandal. It is believed that the Johor Umno accounts have also been frozen.

Dr Mahathir confirmed that the anti-graft body is working on tracing the source of the money, but did not say when the freeze will be lifted.

Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was reported as saying that he was uncertain of the reason behind the freeze, adding that the party’s funds were not acquired via illicit means such as money laundering activities.

An article in the The Edge Malaysia weekly previously revealed that Barisan Nasional had received RM300 million from 1MDB for the 13th general election in 2013.

The report, quoting sources, said Umno headquarters received most of the funds, about RM145 million, transferred from former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s AmBank account.

Ahmad Zahid also previously said that the RM116 million cash in various currencies that was found in Najib-linked residences during a police raid last month belonged to Umno, and that it should be returned.

However, Federal Commercial Crime Investigation Department director Commissioner Datuk Seri Amar Singh was reported as saying on June 27 that nobody from Umno had come forward to claim the RM116 million cash seized from properties connected to Najib.

 

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