On Jan 26, 2016, the attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali, cleared Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak of any wrongdoing over US$681 million in personal donation from Saudi Arabia’s royal family.

In fact, yesterday on Jan 27, 2016, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has confirmed from their own sources that the donation was authorised from the very top - from Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah - with funds coming from both his personal finances and state funds.

Let’s take a few steps back and recall how this whole drama exploded in the international media. A few months back, there was a concerted effort by international media organisations such as the Wall Street Journal, pro-opposition portals Sarawak Report, etc, with the help of certain political leaders from both Barisan Nasional and opposition parties to bring down a democratically elected leader of this country i.e. the prime minister himself.

The concerted effort was fully funded by local business tycoons.

The public face of this group was three people Clare Rewcastle Brown, Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli. Clare Rewcastle Brown uses Sarawak Report to spew lies about the prime minister with information received illegally from Xavier Justo who confessed to trying to sell illegally obtained information from Petrosaudi to certain parties in Malaysia for a sum of US$2 million.

However, before the money could be transferred Xavier Justo was arrested by the Thai police.

First and foremost, I would like to say a big Thank You to Clare Rewcastle Brown, Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli. The half-cooked truth and lies that was spewed by all three of you resulted in the prime minister being given prime time news on all major international media outlet such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg and many more.

This was free publicity. In fact, the lies you told i.e. that the prime minister had used the rakyat’s money via 1MDB has been proven to be a lie. Now, with the confirmation by the Saudi royals that it was a donation from them, the whole world knows that our prime minister did not use the people’s money and he is not corrupted.

Secondly, the three of you have been going around saying that the sum of money was RM2.6 billion but the attorney-general has confirmed that the sum is only RM2.08 billion. You guys were off by nearly RM500 million!

‘You took a shot in the dark’

If this is the quality of the opposition financial wizards I shudder to think of what will happen if the opposition takes over the country, we might lose billions due to your incompetence. The three of you took a shot in the dark and now got caught with your pants down.

Thirdly, the attorney-general also confirmed that the prime minister returned US$620 million to the Saudi royal family in August 2013. This clearly showed that the prime minister is a honest person.

He could have the chance to keep the money for himself but he chose to give it back since it was not spent. In fact, if the prime minister wanted to use the money for personal use, he would have not brought the money into the country in the first place.

Finally, again my greatest gratitude to Clare Rewcastle Brown, Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli for making our prime minister famous worldwide and by accidently now making him to be known as the prime minister that did not use his own people’s money for any of his political activities.

The whole world now knows that the prime minister had to ask for donations from friendly countries just for Barisan Nasional to participate in the last general election.

Lastly, since the truth is already out, will Clare Rewcastle Brown, Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli now apologise to the prime minister and to all Malaysians for the lies that they have spewed in the last 12 months?

However knowing Clare Rewcastle Brown, Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli, after this they might start to question where and how did the Saudi royal family able to obtain so much money and in fact donate it to the prime minister!

I would not be suprised if they do an ‘expose’ on the Saudi royal family after this.

S VELL PAARI is a central working committee (CWC) member of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC).