Was Tommy Pakatan’s AG? Interesting Disclosures In Justice In The Wilderness

By Yuktes Vijay

In his recently released book cum memoir My Story: Justice in the Wilderness, former Attorney-General (AG) Tommy Thomas revealed that a Prince from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had lobbied the then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to drop 1MDB’s arbitration case against the Abu Dhabi-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC). Following that, Mahathir summoned Tommy and asked if there is any way they could settle the matter amicably.

This led to Tommy and the Prince discussing the ways and means of producing a settlement in the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) itself for several minutes. But no settlement was reached because Tommy was adamant that Malaysia would not withdraw the case from the London proceedings and insisted that negotiations must take place in parallel with the case.

According to Tommy, he decided to initiate legal proceedings in the UK after he discovered that Emirati officials were also involved in siphoning off 1MDB funds after going through the case. This discovery is what prompted him to file the suit against IPIC which was subsequently filed on 30 Oct 2018. This was the reason Tommy had reportedly used to justify his decision to act that way.

These revelations only prove one thing: That Tommy was indeed Pakatan‘s AG (as he once proudly claimed), not Malaysia’s.

1MDB-IPIC Settlement

To understand this assertion, you have to understand why this settlement between 1MDB and IPIC happened in the first place.

Malaysian Parliamentary committee (PAC) investigating 1MDB said in its report that the Malaysian sovereign fund sent a total of $3.5 billion to “Aabar BVI” (we call it Aabar BVI because this Aabar was a company registered in the British Virgin Islands).

The 1MDB transfers to “Aabar BVI” included about $1.4 billion from a privately placed bond that Goldman Sachs raised in 2012. The 1MDB fund also made payments of $855 million, $993 million and $295 million as security deposits and other guarantees for the bond to Aabar BVI.

However, in a rather strange turn of events, IPIC, and its subsidiary Aabar Investments PJS (we call this Aabar The Real Aabar) said in a joint statement that they never received any money from 1MDB and that Aabar BVI despite sharing an almost identical name, “was not an entity within either corporate group.”

IPIC even filed a case in London to claim the money. On 09 May 2017, the tribunal in London decided that 1MDB pay US$5.78 billion (RM24.1 billion) to IPIC over five years (not immediately).

1MDB was surprised that neither IPIC nor Aabar had any knowledge of payments since the 3.5b was transferred to the Aabar BVI Falcon bank account. Furthermore, these payments were done as per the legal agreements that were negotiated with Khadem Al Qubaisi in his capacity as managing director of IPIC and chairman of Aabar or with Mohamed Badawy Al Husseiny, who was CEO of Aabar.

So what happened to the money after it went to Aabar BVI could not be determined is it? Actually can.

The IMDB fund had provided documentary evidence of the ownership of Aabar BVI and each payment made. And guess who registered Aabar BVI in the British Virgin Islands? Khadem Al Qubaisi (MD of IPIC) and chairman of The Real Aabar with Mohamed Badawy Al Husseiny, who was CEO of Aabar and also the then chairman of Falcon Bank which happened to be the bank that received almost USD 650 million from 1MDB (is that not so convenient?)

Basically, Khadem Qubaisi and Badawy tried to ‘steal’ 1MDB’s money which was meant for IPIC by registering a company called Aabar (which is a similar IPIC’s subsidiary) in BVI, opening a bank account at Falcon Bank in which Badawy was chairman and fooling 1MDB that Aabar BVI is The Real Aabar. Now, this ain’t rubbish because a criminal court in Abu Dhabi had sentenced Khadem Qubaisi and Badawy al Husseiny to 15 and 10 years in prison respectively. According to WSJ, they both must also jointly pay €300 million, half of which will go to IPIC, which is referred to in court documents as the “victim company” (this means that 1MDB never cheat IPIC. Khadem and Badawy did).

Are these two the Emirati officials that Tommy had discovered of being involved in siphoning off 1MDB funds? I am pretty sure of it.

Anyway, all these revelations made IPIC which earlier had refused to acknowledge they had received any payment from 1MDB to “change their stand” and come to “A SETTLEMENT” that IPIC would accept that 1MDB paid all its debt.

What was THE SETTLEMENT about? Basically, every sen of 1MDB funds that were said to have gone missing was actually after it was paid to or after they were guaranteed by IPIC. Which means that 1MDB would receive back the first payment they made to IPIC as per the consent award judgement from IPIC!

Now tell me. What loss 1MDB would suffer from this settlement right?

But not surprisingly, the ‘ingenious’ Tommy and his then paymasters, Pakatan Harapan, thought otherwise as mentioned by Tommy himself in his memoir which I had shared earlier.

Tommy filed a case in London to set aside the May 9, 2017 consent award which means there is no more SETTLEMENT. According to Tommy’s thinking, it was better for UK courts to affirm that Malaysia has a right to recover the first payment paid to IPIC as per the consent judgement (around RM 1.6 billion) and wants the London courts to decide if 1MDB should pay IPIC as required by the consent award.

It is baffling as to how Tommy thought that this settlement is not beneficial to 1MDB. Why would you let the Courts to determine something that the parties themselves have agreed to resolve and that too in 1MDB’s favour? IPIC had promised that 1MDB would not lose any money. What is the need to even challenge that decision?

Oh ya, you may wonder why IPIC would suddenly accept that 1MDB never did anything wrong as Sarawak Report reported?

Okay look, the IPIC is Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund (their version of Khazanah) and is run by their crown prince. Now imagine if people find out that there was a scam happening right under the next Ruler’s nose and that too, orchestrated by his trusted people? Won’t be good for the image, no? If you had been following The Royals series on Netflix during MCO, you would know how much the royalty care about their image.

Jho Low Revelations

Tommy also revealed that he had even suggested to the Pakatan government that a sum of money should be given as a reward for those who can provide information which would lead to the capture of Jho Low. Unfortunately for Tommy, his requests fell on deaf ears.

It is very peculiar that Pakatan did not adhere to the request as Jho Low was always painted as the main antagonist in this whole 1MDB saga. In fact, in Najib’s 1MDB trial, a key witness had told the court that it was Jho Low who had suggested that the company opens an account with Falcon Bank.

As pointed out earlier, the chairman of Falcon Bank was Badawy who was also the CEO of The Real Aabar. This, among others is evidence that there was a conspiracy to swindle 1MDB’s money behind Najib’s back as claimed by his defence team.

But no effort was ever made to bring Jho Low to face the music. Rather strange? No?

Breaking!

The publishers of Tommy’s book warned the public that they would be sued in case they discover if Tommy’s book was shared illegally by anyone.

However, within 24 hours, it was Tommy Thomas who is in danger of facing a 10 million lawsuit from none other than Bossku Najib Razak himself.

Bossku was left with no other option but to sue Tommy Thomas as he had implied in his book that it was Najib Razak who had ordered the killing of Altantuya (here we go again, facepalm!).

I don’t intend to indulge into details here as I had already bored you all with legal information in earlier paragraphs. But this again proves Tommy Thomas is replicating his role as Pakatan’s spokesperson rather than a legal personality he is falsely famed for.

Conclusion

Tommy probably shared his story about the Prince to impress his shallow thinking friends by creating an impression that he is a man of principles who even stood up to a UAE prince.

Sadly, the truth is, it reaffirms the fact that Tommy had never acted in the best interest of Malaysia and his appointment as AG had only benefitted the likes of Lim Guan Eng from Pakatan Harapan. – New Malaysia Herald

The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of New Malaysia Herald.