Ariff: AmBank and BNM have not denied WSJ’s allegations

Ariff: AmBank and BNM have not denied WSJ’s allegations
FMT Reporters | July 6, 2015

“Since Najib is an interested party, his denial is irrelevant and has no value,” Ariff says.

ariff-sabri

PETALING JAYA: Until AmBank and Bank Negara make their denials, it’s reasonable to assume that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) was reporting the truth when it said that nearly US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) of 1MDB funds flowed into Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal accounts before the 13th general election, Raub MP Ariff Sabri asserts in his latest blog posting.

“Since Najib is an interested party, his denial is irrelevant and has no value,” Ariff says.

He believes that Najib made the denial only for the consumption of “kampung folk” so that they would continue to support him.
“I regret to report that fewer and fewer people believe that Najib is speaking the truth,” he says.

Ariff suspects that AmBank and Bank Negara, in refusing to come up with their denials, are trying to protect themselves against being exposed as liars. He believes that both institutions are aware that many people are in possession of documents that could prove the truth of WSJ’s allegations.

“If WSJ has those documents, one can be certain that it has made copies for safekeeping by its lawyers,” he says.
“It’s also possible that WSJ has given copies to other news organisations so that Najib will have to take on the entire American communication industry if he decides to go to court.
“NBC, for instance, would not have broadcast the WSJ report if it was not supported by solid evidence. It’s not a cheap station.”

Ariff says it would not surprise him if Najib and his soldiers had been pressuring AmBank and Bank Negara to make their denials, but the two institutions would not do so because the “evidence is out there on the market”.

He tells his readers to consider the possibility that ambitious people in Umno were the sources of WSJ’s expose and that the relevant documents were with several parties, including law enforcers and even a royal personage.

Referring to Najib’s statement that he would not have used a local bank if he wanted to steal money, Ariff says one could easily counter that by saying that he thought he, as Prime Minister, had control over everything in the country and was therefore invincible.