For Malaysian PM, New Threats Emerge From Corruption Allegations

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s political woes deepened dramatically this week with the filing of an opposition lawsuit, and a cyber-threat by a hacktivist group – both aiming to pressure him over millions of dollars deposited in his private bank account.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) last week said the funds – almost $700 million (2.6 billion ringgit), deposited in two tranches in March 2013 – came from unidentified donors in the Middle East.

In its suit filed Wednesday, the opposition People’s Justice Party (PKR) said the money may have been used in violation of electoral laws in the May 2013 general election.

“This suit is a follow up of the expose printed in the Wall Street Journal regarding 2.6 billion allegedly deposited in Najib’s private account for use in the 13th General Election and recognized as ‘donations,’” PKR Vice-President Nurul Izzah Anwar told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

“If the ‘donations’ in question were used in entirety for the general election, it violated election rules, and exposes bribery and corruption tactics,” she added.

“It is obvious that the RM 2.6 billion used is more than 26 times the allowed amount outlined by Malaysian laws.”

The Malaysian Election Commission (SPR) and Tengku Adnan Mansor, secretary general of Najib’s United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, are also named in the suit, as is the troubled 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.

The commission “has been complicit in a conspiracy to centralize power in the hands of UMNO and Barisan Nasional,” Nurul said.

In its July 2nd report, the Wall Street Journal alleged that the deposits came from the 1MDB fund, which is billions of dollars in debt.

On Wednesday, SPR Chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof told BenarNews via text messages that the commission would figure out how to respond to the suit after its legal counselors had read it.

The UMNO chairman said the party’s main office had not yet been notified about the suit.

“UMNO will leave it to lawyers to determine further action upon receiving the summons later,” Tengku Adnan Mansor told BenarNews.

‘We are anonymous’

The second threat that emerged against Najib this week came in a video produced by a group calling itself Anonymous Malaysia.

In a nearly 8-minute video posted to its Facebook account late Monday, the group said it would launch “internet warfare” against the Malaysian government to force Najib to resign and submit to corruption investigations.

The prime minister has rejected the accusations relating to 1MDB, saying he had “never taken funds for personal gain.”

Anonymous Malaysia said it planned to carry out the cyber-attack against governmental agencies to coincide with the “Bersih 4.0” rally planned for Aug. 29-30 by a civil society movement that advocates transparent and fair elections.

If the prime minister did not step down, the group threatened to target another 150 sites within 48 hours of the first two rounds of attacks.

Rally organizers said Wednesday they had nothing to do with the hacktivist group.

The group “does not agree [with] nor tolerate vicious attacks, either physical or virtual, towards a democratically elected government, however flawed the electoral system might have been,” said a statement posted on the Bersih website.

“We therefore ask that this group of computer enthusiasts to immediately cease and desist from misusing the Bersih 4 campaign, and advise them to not carry out their threat, which will only jeopardize the peaceful assembly that will take place at the end of the month,” it added.

Last month, hackers infiltrated the police department’s social media accounts, peppering them with messages and images that promoted the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

On Wednesday, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Wilfred Tangau Madius said his ministry would safeguard government sites from the threat made by Anonymous Malaysia.

''As the ministry responsible for making sure the world is safe from cyber threats, the ministry through CyberSecurity Malaysia and MIMOS Berhad has taken precautions in dealing with this cyber threat, '' he said in a statement.