FORMER prime minister Najib Razak asked investigators not to stop at Low Taek Jho, but to probe others who were allegedly involved in stealing from 1Malaysian Development Bhd.

Speaking to Al Jazeera’s 101 East in an exclusive interview today, he said all the culprits must be investigated to find out where the money had gone.

“Fine… let them do their work but don’t just stop at Jho Low. Get others who are involved as well because there are other international figures who probably are involved. They must also be
investigated.

“We want to know where the money flowed to. And who really benefited from the whole 1MDB issue. I would like to know, too,” he told reporter Mary Ann Jolley. She had asked him to comment on the investigations into the goings-on at 1MDB that were currently under way in six countries.

In the hour-long grilling which saw Najib lose his cool a couple of times, he said he did not verify the source of the RM2.6 billion found in his bank account as he had assumed it to be a donation from the late Saudi king Abdullah Abdulaziz Al Saud, who had assured him of his royal support.

“The question is when I received the funds, was I aware of the source of the money… or whether the source of the money is in dispute as to who owns the fund, certainly in my capacity I would not have access to banking knowledge.

“Because whoever owns the the fund is protected by the secrecy of the banking laws so when I received the funds, in all honesty I thought it was a genuine donation and at that particular time, the knowledge that I had was based on a conversation with King Abdullah,” he said.

It was pointed out to Najib that a US Department of Justice report clearly showed the paper trail and that he was invested with the powers of the prime minister at the time.

“Yeah but prime ministers do not have access to banking information,” he said.

When Mary Ann brought up the US$27 million pink diamond pendant that was presented to his wife, a visibly irritated Najib said it was a gift from a prince of the UAE.

He said the prince was Sheikh Mansour, brother of Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Zayed, and   the IPIC chairman.

“We know that Jho Low was a close associate of Sheikh Mansour,” he said.

He also said his wife refused the gift.

 “It’s a matter of dispute what happened to the pink diamond. So let’s not jump to conclusions.”

When pressed on the questions that his wife had met Jho Low and that the jeweller who sold the diamond had known that it was to be a gift from him to Rosmah and that Jho Low paid for it, he said:

“We didn’t know, as far as we were concerned it was a gift from Sheikh Mansour who would know where it came from and who paid for it.  We wouldn’t know! We did not know the value of the present.”

To a question on his stepson Riza Aziz’s funding of the movie Wolf of Wall Street, and the expensive properties he had acquired with what the DoJ said were funds from 1MDB, Najib said Riza had always been a movie buff and he was just getting into into movie-making when the scandal broke.

“Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed told him in my presence that he was going to invest in his movies. We assumed that  whatever investment that is going to come from Abu Dhabi to fund it would be a loan.

“And my stepson was prepared to pay back every single cent that was given to him as a loan because it was a loan and he was prepared to pay back,” he said.

When the reporter asked him what he would say to people who did not believe his explanations and thought he was covering up, he said:

“No, I mean, in all honesty, that’s the truth. I mean, there’s nothing I can do if people don’t believe it, but that’s the honest truth because my track record as prime minister, I can stand by it because this country has developed by leaps and bounds during my tenure.”

When the reporter asked why she had been deported while she was on the trail of the Altantuya murder story, Najib said: “Good thing we deported you. You are a nuisance. Because as far as I am concerned, making lies, fabricating lies is not something we want to tolerate in this country.” – October 26, 2018.

* The interview airs at 11.30am tomorrow. Reruns are at 12.30am and 1.30pm, Monday; 6.30am and 4.30pm, Tuesday; or watch it here after the first broadcast.