Flamboyant and controversial businessman Low Taek Jho is believed to have returned to Kuala Lumpur via a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong yesterday evening, according to news portal The Ant Daily.
According to the report, the tycoon called Jho Low took the CX729 flight that landed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 7.43 pm yesterday, before he was whisked away by a tall ethnic Indian man.
Low’s return came amid a tumultuous time for strategic fund 1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), which has been repeatedly linked to him.
It is unclear if the tycoon is here to take part in the Public Account Committee’s (PAC) probe into 1MDB, as it previously said it was not yet necessary for him to testify.
Responding to the PAC saying it will not yet summon Low for its investigation, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin insisted there was too much speculation about the former’s involvement with 1MDB to be ignored.
In March, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak ordered the Auditor-General and PAC to investigate 1MDB, amid growing demands for explanations over the state investment firm’s allegedly opaque investment decisions and for amassing a RM42 billion debt pile.
Low has repeatedly denied any association with 1MDB but continues to be linked with it …. The PAC was supposed to interview 1MDB chief executive Arul Kanda Kandasamy and his predecessor, Datuk Shahrol Halmi, on Tuesday but had to postpone the hearing after both men informed the committee that they were overseas and would not be able to make it.
Jho Low, one of those at heart of the 1MDB scandal and the benifciary of hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to the national Sovereign Wealth Fund was in Kuala Lumpur this week. Why?
To confer wth Rosmah Mansor wife of his partner and protector Najib Razak. No prizes for guessing the reason for this confabulation!
It is, one supposes, just possible that this visit passed unnoticed by Immigration and our splendid Police Force, the PDRM. But even they, and in particular, their top boss, the IGP, must know what is meant by the term “seizable offence” as defined in the Criminal Procedure Code.
Let us remind them, and the IGP in particular, that seizable offences are those for which a suspect may be arrested on sight without a warrant. They include Criminal Breach of Trust, Theft, Criminal Misappropration and other offences connected to corruption. There are also, in case of any confusion, laws aganst money laundering.
So why, let us ask, was Jho Low not arrested on arrival or while in KL? One supposes that the IGP might try to claim that he and all his Force were ignorant of Jho Low’s presence. No one, not even temselves, would believe that! So we must believe the alternative.
Jho Low was not arrested because orders not to arrest him had been issued. That could only have been done on the authority of the IG himself. Why? Orders in turn from the PM. But he shoud remember that all police officers, no matter how senior, are subject to the law and if they break it they can expect severe punishment. Fancy spending your own declining years in Sungai Buloh Jail, IGP?