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KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 – Tan Sri Tommy Thomas today reportedly refuted the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) claim that he agreed to the decision to release Riza Shahriz Abdul Aziz from five counts of money laundering. today.
“I resigned two and a half months ago and until that time, there was no agreement to drop the charges against Riza. Therefore, it is totally false and a lie to say that he had accepted the decision.
“I am terribly disappointed that the MACC had to make this false statement,” he said.
Riza had submitted her representation on November 18 last year, while Thomas resigned as attorney general in late February after former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had submitted his own resignation.
Earlier today, the MACC said the agreement between the prosecution and the defendant through representation in court was a decision considered and accepted by Thomas.
This comes after it was reported that Riza received a discharge that did not amount to an acquittal in the session court this morning, where Gopal, who was the chief prosecutor, was summoned, saying how the agreement between the prosecution and the accused.
Sri Ram was said to have told the court that the federal government would receive a substantial sum of “several million ringgit” as a result of the settlement.
MACC later said the Malaysian government is expected to recover the foreign assets involved in the crime, which is estimated at $ 107.3 million (RM465.3 million).
On July 5, 2019, Riza, who is also a co-founder of Hollywood production company Red Granite Pictures and the son of Najib’s wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, was charged with five money laundering charges under Section 4 (1) (a) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Financing Against Terrorism Act 2001 (AMLATFA).
Riza pleaded not guilty and demanded a trial on all five charges, which are punishable by a maximum fine of RM5 million or a maximum of five years in prison or both.
He was accused of receiving a total of US $ 248,173,104 (equivalent to around RM1,026 billion at the exchange rate on the day he was charged or more than RM1,075 billion at today’s exchange rate) between April 2011 and November 2012.
The funds were alleged to have flowed in cross-border transactions from two Swiss bank accounts of two companies named in the massive 1MDB financial scandal – Good Star Limited and Aabar Investments PJS Limited – to the US bank account of Red Granite Productions Inc and Singapore bank account of Red Granite Capital Ltd.
