YOURSAY | ‘And why didn’t Najib passed this money on to the rakyat?’

Do as you please with US$375m gift, Saudi prince says in letter to Najib

Negarawan: Government to government aid is never channelled into any individual's personal account.

In PM Najib Razak's case, the massive transfers into his personal accounts occurred too many times from various Saudi sources. Saudi Arabia is known to be a highly corrupt regime.

The transfers could have been made under the pretext of "donations" but they could have been illegitimate funds. There is no valid excuse for such funds to be not transferred to a valid government account.

After all, why no one else in Umno or the government is aware about such transfers into Najib's accounts until The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and other international media exposed them?

The stench is unbearably strong. The Swiss Office of the Attorney General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FPB) must work urgently to reveal the truth and charge all the culprits.

Anonymous_1371515574: I am just a lowly consultant working in a multinational company and every year I have to go through a Standards of Business Conduct training.

In the matter of corruption. the training recognises that in many cases, it is not black and white. However, a good way to judge is just to imagine what that transaction will look like if it is reported in the newspapers.

If a small-time consultant like me have to be wary of this, how much more the prime minister of a country?

In my line of work, any gift more than RM50 to a single person is already considered an issue. Here, we are talking about hundreds of millions...

Can we really believe that some Saudi prince can be so generous? And even if it is true that it is a donation, the prime minister has already failed the newspaper test 10 million times over.

Kim Quek: First, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) said the letter dated Nov 2, 2011 by “HRH Prince Saud Abdulaziz Al-Saud” only “pledged” a grant of US$375 million.

Second, the letter is a fake because the British Virgin Islands-registered Black Stone Asia Real Estate Partners Ltd (no link to the US global investment giant, the Black Stone Group) mentioned in the letter did not belong to the “prince” but to Jho Low.

The signatory to this company was Jho Low’s deputy Seet Li Lin, who was also signatory to another notorious Jho Low company, Gold Star Limited, made infamous for allegedly siphoning US$700 million from 1MDB the day after signing the PetroSaudi-1MDB joint venture in September 2009.

This Black Stone company of Jho Low, which gave its address in Singapore, was liquidated in early 2013.

Further, this letter from the “prince” did not show any address or telephone number, nor accompanied by any identification document of the sender, making the letter totally unacceptable by any banking institution for scrutiny against stringent anti-money laundering and anti-terror legislations.

Finally, the name Saud Abdulaziz bin Majid al-Saud does not appear in the World’s Richest 50 Arabs, whose wealth are US$2 billion and above, as listed by Arab Busines.com. That virtually rules out the “prince” as the donor of US$1 billion to Najib.

Oxymoronictendencies: If all this money that was freely "given" to Najib is indeed just that, a gift, then why didn’t Najib passed this money on to the rakyat, the government or even to Umno.

Instead we are asked to believe he used some for as yet undisclosed purposes and gave the rest back. Why did he not say he gave most of the money back last July (when the RM2.6 billion in his bank accounts was first exposed)? Why did it take six months for this revelation to come to light?

Sadly, much as I would like to believe that our PM is the angel he would have us believe he is, the old saying that there is no smoke without fire holds true.

And the smoke is so dense, the undermining of the institutions that form the checks and balances of Malaysia's democracy so devastating, and the abuse of power so eye wateringly blatant, that unfortunately I am forced to disbelieve the plentiful but pathetic denials of wrongdoing, that they are really the cries of the guilty seeking to hide their misdeeds.

Roguekiller: Saudi Arabia is running short of funds and it is hunting for loans to keep it afloat. Now you have a very irresponsible prince, who barely has enough money himself, purportedly gave US$375 million to Najib for governing Malaysia under supposedly Islamic principles.

According Forbes' list of billionaires, Prince Alwaleed Talal Alsaud has US$22.6 billion. He is the richest Arab and he is at no 34.

Prince Saud Abdul Aziz Majid has less than US$1billion, and if so, how could he have given away US$375 million?

Alunan Ombak: Najib, if your claim of the Saudi gift (with no condition attached) is true, you now have enough solid documentary evidence (the letter) to refute the allegation of grand corruption involving a whopping RM2.6 billion which wormed its way into your personal bank account.

We appeal to you - oh, our beleaguered PM - sue WSJ, Sarawak Report , and other detractors of yours, including the opposition.

Lone_Star: Can we also be taught this " ilmu " of obtaining donations worth billions which have no strings or cables attached and can be spent on whatever we fancy, for example, bags, rings, expensive flights of fantasy, etcetera?

Saudi prince’s ‘do as you please’ letter bizarre

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