(July 7): Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has shamed the country due to the scandal involving debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), says Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his latest blog posting.

The former prime minister was responding to Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman who said he shamed the country after being interviewed by US daily The New York Times (NYT).

"The person who has shamed the country is Najib and his 1MDB. Before this, the country was never ridiculed like this, with such allegations that remain unanswered until now," Dr Mahathir wrote.

Dr Mahathir’s post comes after the WSJ and Sarawak Report revealed that investigations into 1MDB had allegedly uncovered billions of ringgit pumped into Najib's personal accounts.

The documents showed that US$700 million (RM2.67 billion) was moved among government agencies, banks and entities linked to 1MDB and finally ending up in the prime minister's personal accounts in five separate deposits, WSJ said.

It said that the largest transactions were deposits of US$620 million and another one for US$61 million in March 2013, two months before the general election was held.

The WSJ and Sarawak Report quoted from documents on the 1MDB probe carried out by the Malaysian government, with Sarawak Report saying the Attorney-General was also aware of the information.

Sarawak Report said RM42 million had gone into Najib's accounts from SRC International Sdn Bhd, the Finance Ministry-owned company that had taken a RM4 billion loan from the Retirement Fund Incorporated.

After Dr Mahathir's interview in the NYT was published, Anifah wrote an open letter to the editor, saying the former prime minister's actions had undermined his own country through the international media and was part of a personal political vendetta.

But Dr Mahathir chided the foreign affairs minister in his blog today, suggesting that Anifah had probably never read foreign newspapers before making attempts to discredit him in order to protect Najib.

"The whole world knows about Datuk Seri Najib, Jho Low and 1MDB.

"This is because all the main newspapers in Washington, New York and London have written lengthy pieces up to four pages long on the 1MDB scandal, Najib and his lavish lifestyle and his close friend Jho Low and his stepson Riza Aziz that funded the obscene movie The Wolf of Wall Street," Dr Mahathir said.

He also said that a study had found Malaysia to be one of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world.

Dr Mahathir said these negative reports on Malaysia had been published even before he started criticising Najib, adding that Anifah did not seem ashamed as he had not said anything about them.

If the minister "had any sense of shame", he would have felt so over these reports, Dr Mahathir said.

He added that in any other country, a leader embroiled in scandal he would have stepped down and apologised.

"Only in Malaysia there will be those who defend a leader with no good reason, just to protect their own positions.” – The Malaysian Insider