Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak has urged the people not to jump to conclusions of the reported claims about 1MDB made in the United States.
"No one should rush to judgment before allegations are proven in court," Salleh said in a posting on his blog today.
His remarks came after the US Department of Justice filed damning lawsuits seeking to seize assets bought with funds allegedly siphoned from 1MDB.
Salleh said the state investment fund has been the victim of an "unprecedented politically-motivated attack" which sought to unseat Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
"So many of the allegations, like Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s lie that 42 billion had gone missing, were later proved false - in this case by the bi-partisan Public Accounts Committee."
He added that comprehensive investigations, as well as Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, had confirmed that the donation Najib received came from the Saudi royal family.
Al-Jubeir had confirmed the donation in April, two months after he was quoted as being doubtful about it.
Najib, who has been cleared by attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali of any wrongdoing in regard to the 1MDB scandal, was not named in the US Justice Department's suit yesterday.
However, the lawsuit does claim that an unnamed individual, dubbed 'Malaysian Official 1', had received hundreds of millions of dollars in siphoned 1MDB funds.
One of the transactions include a US$681 million deposit diverted from 1MDB into the official's account in 2013.
The department also quoted Malaysia's attorney-general as saying the deposit was a personal donation from the Saudi royal family.
Source -MKini-
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