ANTI-CORRUPTION AGENCY SUMMONS NAJIB FOR PROBE

Kuala Lumpur, May 19: Scandal-tainted former Malaysian leader Najib Razak has been summoned to appear before the country’s anti-corruption authorities next week as part of an anti-graft investigations, state media has reported.

Najib, 64, unexpectedly lost a May 9 election to a political coalition that had focused on allegations that he oversaw the looting of billions of dollars from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB in a vast conspiracy of fraud and money-laundering stretching around the world.

Najib was already barred from leaving Malaysia in the wake of the election, and police seized large amounts of cash, jewels and luxury items from his home and other sites last week. State-run Bernama news agency said Najib had been ordered to app-ear before the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) next Tuesday.

“So far, he is asked to turn up next Tuesday to enable us to record his statement relating to SRC International,” Bernama quoted an MACC source as saying.

SRC International was a subsidiary of 1MDB before being placed directly under the finance ministry in 2012. Najib was both prime minister and finance minister at the time. Hundreds of millions of dollars linked to SRC are alleged to have gone missing. As reports proliferated that billions were looted from 1MDB by Najib, his family and cronies, his government shut down inquiries into the scam, arrested critics calling for investigation.