Malaysia’s High Court on Thursday acquitted Rosmah Mansor, the wife of jailed former Prime Minister Najib Razak, of money laundering and tax evasion, citing insufficient grounds to charge her.Najib and Rosmah have been the subject of multiple graft investigations since Najib’s surprise election defeat in 2018, when voters’ fury over his alleged role in a multi-billion dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) ended his nine years in power. Both have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.Rosmah is not yet out of the woods, however, and is currently free on bail pending an appeal against a 10-year jail sentence in 2022 for soliciting and receiving bribes to help a company win a $279 million solar power supply project from Najib’s government.Rosmah has been widely scorned in Malaysia for her extravagant lifestyle and penchant for luxury handbags, more than 500 of which were found at properties searched by police as part of investigations into the 1MDB scandal, on top of 12,000 items of jewellery.According to Thursday’s High Court judgment seen by Reuters, Rosmah was acquitted of the 12 money laundering charges and five tax evasion charges against her, which it said lacked probity, propriety and legality.
Judging by the expressions of joy and triumphalism, anyone would think this greedy woman had been vindicated instead of let off the hook and allowed to keep her unexplained wealth (to the utter delight of her daughter who perhaps might like to explain how her mother got so rich in different terms to her own half sister who decided to get the matter off her chest some time ago – see beneath).
Anyone who deposits millions of ringgit into their personal bank account in the form of cash brought in suitcases for which they cannot provide an explanation, do not declare and do not pay tax on has broken the law.
No one is denying that Rosmah did this and that she did not pay tax.
Like her son, Najib and their lawyer she got off for political reasons – or owing, as the court appears to infer, to inexplicable incompetencies in the prosecution process. Meanwhile, other less connected folk go to jail for evading their taxes on far lesser sums.
The government that came in on a pledge to root out corruption and reform Malaysia’s canker at the top appears to be held hostage by UMNO’s small remaining rump of wealthy warlords, most of whom were voted out in righteous disgust by the mass of the population at the last election.
One by one, a veritable A list cast of UMNO crooks, kleptocrats, money launderers, tax evaders and criminal abusers of the public trust have seen their charges dropped, their sentences cut short with perks provided, and even returns to the highest offices in the land with honours attached. No need to name names which are on everybody’s pursed lips.
Instead, a handful of ancient personal vendettas are being doggedly pursued either against the already dead or the extreme elderly who present no lasting threat. Malaysia’s most dangerous and criminal political operators are meanwhile being ‘rehabilitated’ to act as if the whole world was applauding their innocence and ‘vindication’.
Malaysians are in fact left wondering whether to laugh or cry at such a shame against their nation and expressing their utter disgust at such a betrayal.
Whistleblowers, meanwhile, can expect the harshest treatment for exposing the truth about the awful crimes committed in Malaysia by those entrusted with highest office.
Excerpt from Azrene Ahmed’s Facebook post May 2018
” I witnessed the side deals made behind the back of the one on the right. The amount of money in briefcases exchanging hands and being spent like water not for the benefit of the rakyat but to be spent like water on jewels, bribery of officials and used in the pursuit of gaining more power. Shamans, witch doctors, aesthetic doctors and the like walking the pathways of my home for one reason or another but mostly to bring to heel and gain dominion over their peers and over their family members, even to cause harm on those who were audacious enough to cross them. The numerous offshore accounts opened to launder money out of the country for their personal spending. The steel safes full of jewels, precious stones and cash amassed.”