Pascal Najadi, son of slain AmBank founder Hussain Najadi, has raised concerns that the ease at which Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak could move billions of ringgit in his personal bank accounts at AmBank may imply the rules are lax enough for terrorist organisations to do the same.

"We note reason for concern observing the massive money [transfers] scale that seems to be free and clear of any Malaysian governance, law, and justice.

"Malaysia proves to the entire world that money laundering in largest scales of billions of US dollars is possible to be organised in Malaysia.

"We caution the world that this poses, in our opinion, additional unwanted risks of terrorist organisations using Malaysia as a money laundering hub in South East Asia," he said in a statement yesterday.

Pascal noted that in the case of Najib, money from the Middle East appeared to have passed unnoticed by regulators and Bank Negara for years.

"This is a clear and present danger to Malaysia in much testing times in the global combat against terrorism and organised crime.

"The International Monetary Fund and all international prosecutors working on revealing the [alleged] massive 1MDB heist ought to exert more pressure on Putrajaya to literally clean up the prevailing criminal money laundering in Malaysia," he said.

'Relook credit rating'

He added that credit rating agencies may also need to revisit Malaysia's rating, particularly in terms of governance.

"This is a seriously dangerous mix posing serious risks for international investors per se, given the fact that Bank Negara has a total lack of grip over the situation.

"The world cannot tolerate states that condone money laundering at the highest levels; no one really can tolerate this in our dangerous times of global terrorism on the rise," he said.

Pascal had previously also claimed that the assassination of his father was linked to the 1MDB scandal.

However, the Malaysian government denied any such links.