Malaysian PM: Officials free to act against those implicated in Pandora Papers
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KUALA LUMPUR • Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has said the enforcement authorities are free to take action based on the allegations made in the Pandora Papers, a trove of leaked documents about the offshore finance of world leaders.
The government will not interfere or stop the authorities from pursuing any case based on the information in the papers, he said yesterday.
"We are an open country. If anyone has a case against them, the authorities are free to take action," Datuk Seri Ismail said.
"So we leave it to the authorities and we will not prevent them from taking action."
The Prime Minister, however, added that there needs to be evidence before action can be taken against those implicated.
"There has to be proof before taking action. Otherwise, you can't," he said.
The Malaysian police said yesterday that they have opened two probes over the Pandora Papers.
Commissioner Abd Jalil Hassan, director of the Criminal Investigation Department, said the police have received four police reports on the matter so far.
Earlier this month, dozens of influential Asians, including ruling party politicians, were among thousands of people around the world linked to offshore companies or trusts in the latest leak of confidential financial information, dubbed the Pandora Papers.
The data dump - nearly three terabytes - by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is the network's largest so far, even compared with 2016's Panama Papers, and more than double the size of 2017's Paradise Papers.
Among those implicated were former Malaysian finance minister Daim Zainuddin and his family members - two of his sons were alleged to be shareholders of British Virgin Islands companies with assets of £10 million in 2007 and £12 million (S$22 million) in 2017.
Tun Daim, responding over the leak, has said he was a "successful and wealthy" businessman long before he entered politics and that taxes have been fully paid for his businesses and income.
THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
