DR Abdul Latiff Ahmad has denied that the woman named by Rafizi Ramli as being involved in a suspicious transaction involving the littoral combat ship (LCS) project was his wife.

“Referring to media reports on the LCS project probe, I would like to stress that Zainab Mohd Salleh is not my wife as stated in the stories.

“As a cabinet member, I’m prepared to give full cooperation should authorities wish to initiate further investigation,” he said in a brief media statement.

PKR deputy president Rafizi alleged this morning that the wife of a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department was involved in a suspicious transaction involving the LCS project.

He claimed that based on the government’s investigative documents, an offshore company involved in the embezzlement of more than RM233 million had links with the wife of Latiff, a minister in the Ismail Sabri Yaakob administration.

He said Zainab was a shareholder in Alizes Marine Ltd, one of two offshore companies set up to embezzle LCS project funds with a ceiling value of RM9 billion from 2011 to 2014.

Latiff was deputy defence minister from 2008 to 2013, while defence minister was Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is now Umno president.

The Malaysian Insight has contacted the former deputy minister for comment.

Latiff joined Bersatu from Umno after the 2018 general election.

Rafizi said an internal investigation of the LCS scandal and his own follow-up review showed that two sham companies using the name Alizes Marine had been registered.

He said a firm named Alizes Marine Ltd was registered in Malta and another named Alizes Marine Labuan was registered in Labuan.

He added that both firms had offshore statuses and could be tracked.

The existence of Alizes Marine was only known when the offshore company’s database was leaked by whistle-blowers in what was known as the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers.

“A check with the Paradise Papers database confirmed the existence of the Alizes Marine Ltd company owned by a woman named Zainab Mohd Salleh,” Rafizi said. – August 22, 2022.