The government’s bid to recover money linked to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) suffered another blow today after the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed its forfeiture suit against Yayasan Persatuan Bekas Anggota Kemas Malaysia (Yayasan PBAKM) for RM100,000.
The decision comes in the wake of a similar outcome on Tuesday when the government also failed to seize RM1.31 million of alleged 1MDB-linked money from Jakel Trading and Johor Baru Barisan Nasional (BN).
Judge Datuk Muhammad Jamil Hussin today ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove that the money in Yayasan PBAKM’s account which had been frozen, was either partly or totally from former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“It is clear that the RM100,000 and the latest balance in the bank account of the respondent contains a mixed amount of money, from payments made by Datuk Seri Najib and from other sources,” he added.
Muhammad Jamil said no third party had come to court on Sept 4, 2019 to make claim on the money and PBAKM had also raised several issues in objecting to the prosecution’s forfeiture application.
He said PBAKM had never denied the fact that they had received RM100,000 from Najib, but denied that the money was proceeds from unlawful activities.
“The respondent’s (PBAKM) bank statements also showed the deposit and withdrawals in the account. Najib issued a check dated Oct 19, 2013 amounting to RM100,000 to the respondent and the check was deposited into the respondent’s account on Oct 22 the same year,” he said.
He said the bank statement also showed that after the check payment from Najib, there were many transactions in and out of the bank accounts and the lowest balance was RM1,512.46 as of March 31, 2016.
“After that, there were several transactions in and out of the respondent’s bank account and the latest balance as of May 13, 2019 was RM805,751.13,” he added.
After Muhammad Jamil handed down the decision, deputy public prosecutor Nik Haslinie Hashim, from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), informed the court that the prosecution would file an application to suspend the release of the money to PBAKM.
At today’s proceeding, PBAKM was represented by lawyers Datuk Julita Ilhani Abdul Jabbar and Mohamed Azahari Matiasin.
Meanwhile, in another development, the court fixed July 21 to hear the RM677,872.55 forfeiture suit against Umno Johor and July 27 for the RM2.74 million forfeiture suit against Umno Selangor.
In June last year, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) filed a civil forfeiture suit against 41 entities, comprising individuals, companies and political parties, under the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act to recover about RM270 million believed to be linked to 1MDB.
The MACC believed the money was illegally transferred from Najib’s accounts.