Prime Minister is in Bali this week, and when asked by media how financier, and current international fugitive, Jho Low keeps evading arrest, hinted that it could be internal Malaysian civil servant, malevolent figures tipping him off.
“I think he is hiding somewhere,” he said, and then reiterated what was said by Tun Daim Zainuddin, the chairman of the PM’s five-member advisory board, the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP): A saboteur is perhaps among us.
Mahathir’s long-time colleage and friend, Daim has said that he believes someone is informing Low of the government’s moves, foiling arrests plans in the authority’s wake.
“One time he was in Hong Kong. When we reached Hong Kong, he had flown away already.” He believes a leak from someone working in the civil service to a member of the previous administration, then passed on to Jho’s team was behind the sudden movement.
On the eve of Hari Raya in July this year, Daim says authorities had received a tip-off that Low was staying at an overseas hotel with his family. However, he made a swift and sudden exit within an hour after receiving what Daim believes was a tip-off that the Malaysian government was aware of his whereabouts.
However, both Mahathir and Daim stopped short of sharing any more details on the matter, nor who exactly could be sabotaging their attempts to bring the wanted man to justice.
Tun Daim did share that Low had previously contacted him to help locate 1MDB-related assets in return for immunity, a deal that the CEP chairman rejected.
“I don’t know what role he’s playing. He said he can help us to get back the assets and give us one or two names (of people involved),” Daim said.
“I told him ‘no’. If he wanted to help, he’d better come back first so that we can talk. He claimed he is innocent, so if you are innocent, then you should come back. Why are you running away?”
*Cough.
Perhaps for the same reason he’s so keen to know the movements of super-yacht Equanimity, a boat he still maintains that he does not own. Wild speculative guess on our end.
