Malaysia’s ex-PM Najib Razak says many luxury handbags were gifts from son-in-law, nephew of Kazakhstan’s president

In interview, Najib Razak also said US$681 million transferred into his personal bank account was a donation from late Saudi King Abdullah

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Malaysia's former prime minister Najib Razak: ‘I want to clear my name”. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:56am, 21 Jun 2018Updated: 7:43pm, 21 Jun 2018

Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak says he shouldn’t be blamed for the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, and declares he knows nothing about money from the state fund appearing in his personal account.

He does, though, have explanations for the vast sums of cash, luxury handbags and jewellery recently seized from his homes by the Malaysian authorities.

Speaking to Reuters in his first sit-down interview since his shock May 9 election defeat, Najib said his advisers and the management and board of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), had wrongly kept the alleged embezzlement of funds a secret from him.

Newly-elected Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told Reuters on Tuesday that the authorities have “an almost perfect case” against Najib on charges of embezzlement, misappropriation and bribery linked to 1MDB.

In a separate interview with South China Morning Post, Mahathir said the Malaysian government was taking time to build a watertight case in the 1MDB financial scandal and not be swayed by populist sentiment.

Mahathir dismisses Najib's denials about 1MDB, asking ‘who wants to believe him?’

The 64-year-old politician lost the election after a decade in power at least partly because of the 1MDB scandal, which US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions has described as “kleptocracy at its worst”.

Najib, in some of his most extensive comments yet on the 1MDB scandal, said he did not know if hundreds of millions of dollars that moved through his personal account was from 1MDB, and if money from the fund was eventually laundered to acquire assets globally, including yachts, paintings, gems and prime real estate.