Section:GDN 1N PaGe:32 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 16:35 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Thursday 29 Aug ust 2019
(^32) World
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
South-east Asia correspondent
Malaysia’s former prime minister
Najib Razak abused his power to steal
billions from the state to “enrich him-
self ” and then conducted an elaborate
charade to cover his tracks, prosecu-
tors in Kuala Lumpur have said.
The fi rst day of the long-awaited
trial of Najib over his involvement in
a vast corruption scandal opened yes-
terday, after months of delays, with
a blistering summary of his alleged
crimes by the chief prosecutor, Gopal
Sri Ram.
The “ 1MDB affair”, which was
exposed in 2015, has been described
as the “biggest kleptocracy scan-
dal in the world”. More than $4.5bn
of state money was embezzled
from a Malaysian government fund,
known as 1MDB, and spent lavishly
in Malaysia and around the world on
everything from Manhattan property
and diamonds to Picasso paintings and
Hollywood fi lms.
Najib, who served as Malaysia’s
prime minister for nine years before
being toppled from power in 2018,
faces 25 charges, including abuse of
power. He is accused of transferring
2.3bn ringgit ( £445m) out of 1MDB –
almost one-quarter of its funds. Najib
denies all charges and says he was
misled by others involved in the run-
ning of the fund.
Gopal said Najib was “pivotal” in the
plundering of the 1MDB fund and then
“interfered with the course of inves-
tigation of this case ... He took active
steps to eff ect a cover-up of his crim-
inal acts.”
Gopal said the relationship between
a Malaysian businessman, Jho Low,
and Najib would be central to the pros-
ecution’s case. Low was brought in as
an informal consultant to 1MDB and
became notorious for his ostenta-
tious lifestyle which, it is alleged, was
funded by stolen 1MDB money. Low’s
location is unknown. He has denied all
the charges.
Gopal said Najib had “made it clear
to 1MDB’s offi cers, its board and others
that Jho Low was his alter ego. In truth,
Jho Low was the accused’s mirror
image ... they acted as one.”
Najib and Low had produced sham
documents to cover his tracks, includ-
ing letters and four cheques totalling
$25m to pretend the stolen 1MDB
money was a donation from an Arab
prince, Gopal said.
“But these cheques were never
meant to be cashed and were never
cashed,” he added.
Najib is the fi rst former Malaysian
prime minister to be charged with
crimes carried out while in offi ce.
His lawyer, Shafee Abdullah, had
attempted to postpone the start of the
1MDB trial until next month, claiming
his team needed more time to prepare
after the prosecution handed him
thousands of pages of documents. But
last week the judge ruled it would still
go ahead.
It will be the second trial Najib
has faced, and it is likely he will face
a third. On Tuesday, proceedings
wrapped up for his fi rst trial, which
related to SRC International, a fund
that was a subsidiary of 1MDB. Najib is
alleged to have siphoned an estimated
$10m from SRC into his personal bank
accounts, a charge he also denies.
During the SRC trial, the profl igate
spending habits of Najib and his wife,
Rosmah Manso r , were put on display
in court, including Najib spending
$800,000 in a single day at a luxury
Swiss jeweller in Italy.
However, the 1MDB trial is consid-
ered the most signifi cant, both for
Malaysia and internationally. There
are 1MDB investigations taking place
in 12 countries. In the US, the justice
department recently charged two
former Goldman Sachs bankers with
conspiring to launder billions of dol-
lars embezzled from Malaysia’s state
development fund.
Former PM denies
stealing billions as
long-awaited trial
begins in Malaysia
Tourists in
the water with
bottlenose
dolphins in the
Bay of Islands,
North Island,
New Zealand
PHOTOGRAPH: TIM
CLAYTON/CORBIS/
GETTY IMAGES
Eleanor Ainge Roy
Dunedin
The New Zealand government has
banned tourists from swimming with
bottlenose dolphins in an attempt to
save the species.
According to the Department of
Conservation (DoC ), research has
shown that humans were “loving
the dolphins too much” and human
interaction was “having a signifi cant
impact on the population’s resting and
feeding behaviour”.
The ban on swimming with bottle-
nose dolphins applies to tour operators
in the North Island’s Bay of Islands
region, which is popular with tour-
ists for its warm climate and golden
beaches. Other dolphin tours that
interact with diff erent species in other
parts of the country are still permitted.
Bottlenose dolphins prefer to swim
in coastal regions, making them vul-
nerable to human activity, and their
numbers in the Bay of Islands have
declined by 66% since 1990, accord-
ing to the DoC. A core group of only
19 bottlenose dolphins visit the region
regularly now, and the latest reports
show a 75% mortality rate among
their calves – the highest seen in New
Zealand.
Alongside banning tourist swims
Swimming
with dolphins
banned amid
fall in numbers
with bottlenose dolphins, the DoC
has stipulated that tour operators
may interact with the dolphins for
no more than 20 minutes (reduced
from 30 ) at a time, and all operators
will be restricted to visiting on either
mornings or afternoons, to provide
a block of time where the dolphins
are left alone. The possibility of cre-
ating a marine sanctuary in the Bay
of Islands is being investigated by the
DoC, research partners and local Māori
tribes.
Tour operators in the Bay of Plenty
have raised concerns about the impact
the ban will have on tourism numbers,
and said fewer tour operators on the
water would mean fewer eyes watch-
ing out for how private boats interacted
with the vulnerable population.
Tourists can still swim with com-
mon or dusky dolphins in tours
operated in the South Island.
Hamas on alert in Gaza after
apparent suicide bombings
Oliver Holmes and agencies
Explosions at two Hamas checkpoints
in Gaza have killed three police offi cers
and wounded several other Palestini-
ans in apparent suicide bombings. No
group has yet claimed responsibility.
The Hamas-run interior ministry
declared a state of emergency in the
coastal enclave yesterday, with author-
ities searching for those responsible.
Witnesses said the attacks appeared
to have been suicide bombings, which
are rare in Gaza, suggesting they might
have been carried out by a rival faction.
They would be the fi rst suicide bomb-
ings aimed at local Palestinian targets.
Hamas, which took control of Gaza
in a 2007 civil war with the Palestin-
ian Authority, has been locked in an
▲ One of the two Hamas checkpoints
targeted in the unclaimed attacks
on-off confl ict with Israel. The Israeli
military said it had not carried out any
strikes in Gaza overnight.
Hamas has also faced opposition
from other armed factions in Gaza,
including militants aligned with
al-Qa ida or Islamic State. This has led
to rounds of bloody infi ghting between
Hamas and other Islamist groups.
“The sinful hands that carried
out this crime will not escape pun-
ishment,” said an interior ministry
spokesman, Eyad al-Bozom.
Witnesses said the fi rst blast on
Tuesday night destroyed a motorcy-
cle at a police checkpoint, killing two
offi cers. Less than an hour later, a sec-
ond explosion killed another police
offi cer at a separate checkpoint in Gaza
City along the coastal road.
Ismail Haniyeh , head of Hamas,
said the territory could “absorb” such
attacks. “We are certain things will be
controlled and all sides involved in
these bombings will be held account-
able,” he said.
Israel and Hamas have fought three
wars since 2008 and multiple short
battles during the past two years. A
recent truce has faltered after rocket
fi re from Gaza and infi ltration attempts
against Israel, even though these have
not been claimed by Hamas. Other mil-
itant groups, possibly angered by the
truce with Israel, are suspected of
carrying out those attacks.
66%
75%
The decline
in bottlenose
dolphins in the
Bay of Islands
since 1990
Mortality rate
among calves
born to the
remaining
dolphins
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