THE “real” Najib Razak is a simple person who loves a simple lifestyle, the former prime minister, who is facing corruption charges related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), said in a just-released Netflix documentary series.

Najib said that while he accepted the accusations that he and his wife Rosmah Mansor live an “opulent lifestyle” he hoped to change the public perception.

Evidence of the couple’s lavish habits is shown on Dirty Money, a TV show about real-life crimes released yesterday.

“It’s wildly exaggerated in terms of my lifestyle. I’m basically a simple person, I love a simple lifestyle,” he said in the episode, Man at the Top.

“It’s not appropriate so I’m trying my level best, you know, to change that perception. Because I think it’s just a question of perception. The truth is something else.

“And I hope people in due course will understand and I hope people in due course will understand the real person that I am.”

He said his wife “like most women, likes to shop”.

“You tend to accumulate things over a period of time and some of the places she shops at… she goes to outlets as well. I sometimes complain, Don’t keep things. You are a hoarder, get rid of them.

“But it’s amazing after a few years, the amount of things you accumulate, particularly when you are in office. Friends do give us presents, and it’s not anything against the law to receive presents. Every government receives gifts, particularly from the Middle East.”

The one-hour show traces the start of the 1MDB scandal starting from the sovereign wealth fund’s joint venture with PetroSaudi International to the role Penang-born businessman Low Taek Jho played in the affair, the US Department of Justice’s investigations, and the toppling of the Barisan Nasional government headed by Najib in 2018.

Others interviewed on the episode include former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, PKR president Anwar Ibrahim, Sarawak Report blogger Claire Rewcastle-Brown, ex-PetroSaudi executive and whistleblower Xavier Andre Justo, and DAP’s Tony Pua.

Ex-Goldman Sachs banker Tim Leissner’s role in 1MDB’s bond issuance, in return for over-inflated fees, is featured on the episode, as are Justo’s move to leak information about the 1MDB-PetroSaudi joint venture, Najib’s culling of his critics, including the then attorney-general in 2015, and Bersih 2.0’s November 2016 street protest against corruption.

Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah, who was then Bersih chairman and who was arrested over the protest, reveals how chicken blood was thrown on her son’s car as a warning.

The documentary follows the fall of Najib’s government in the 2018 general election, followed by the raids on premises linked to him that led to the seizure of 284 boxes of designer handbags and 72 bags of cash, jewellery and watches, culminating in the courtroom where Najib, Rosmah and her son Riza Aziz are now facing charges of corruption and money laundering.

It also traces Low’s wild spending  with funds allegedly stolen from 1MDB, and includes footage of the fugitive with Paris Hilton at Low’s 23rd birthday party in Las Vegas.

Najib takes the opportunity in the documentary to explain the US$681 million (RM2.6 billion) found in his personal accounts, which he claimed was from Middle East royalty for “CSR” (corporate social responsibility) programmes that he was to have carried out as the Umno president.

“In the day to day schedule of running the country, it’s impossible to look at the details. Nothing is linked to me. It’s all politics,” he said.

The episode shows Rosmah’s influence over her husband, and features an old clip of a younger Rosmah, telling the camera: “My husband likes to see me walking two steps behind him. I don’t mind behind walking two steps behind him. It makes him happy. But what’s important is, I get what I would like to get.” 

The show moves on to the current period of Najib still enjoying the support of Malay voters, thanks largely to his successful “Bossku” PR campaign.

Rural fishermen are interviewed, one of whom says that it is expected of government leaders to take money for themselves, but that it is all right as long as the “take care of the people”.

Another supporter is recorded saying, “His government fell because of lies and conspiracy. He has nothing to be ashamed of”. – March 12, 2020.