DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has urged 1MDB president and executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy to come clean and own up to all allegations of financial mismanagement, including decisions made before his time.

This, he said, would be the only way for Arul Kanda to earn some public sympathy.

He was responding to Arul Kanda’s interview with The Edge Financial Weekly , where the 1MDB president reiterated the possibilities of " massive fraud " and “collaboration from our side (1MDB)” over the US$3.5 billion payment made to the fake Aabar BVI.

Arul Kanda also spoke about wanting to quit 1MDB and how the issues now faced by the fund were "not what I signed up for".

Lim, however, stressed it was not sufficient for Arul Kanda to merely distance himself from the allegations, after numerous exposes by the international media and whistle-blower website Sarawak Report .

“Didn’t Arul Kanda take the most elementary measures to check on the veracity of these detailed reports in the international media and Sarawak Report ?

“Even more important and relevant, why did he defend the integrity and good governance practices of 1MDB in these cases of ‘massive frauds’ and ‘collaboration’?” he asked.

Lim pointed out that even though some of the decisions were made before Arul Kanda assumed his post in January last year, he had defended their propriety and correctness for more than a year, including in his appearances before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiry into 1MDB.

“It is just too little too late for Arul to indulge in such ‘escapades’ as he can only redeem for his own ‘sins’ in the 1MDB scandal,” said the Gelang Patah MP in a media statement.

At the same time, Lim said Arul Kanda can no longer feign ignorance over the “original sin” of the 1MDB scandal, the diversion of US$700 million of 1MDB funds in 2009 to Good Star Limited - a shell company linked to tycoon Jho Low - and later found to have no links to PetroSaudi International, 1MDB’s original joint venture partner.

“Let Arul Kanda state whether he had prior knowledge of the PAC report on 1MDB before it was tabled in Parliament on April 7, and whether he had any role in the deletion of this crucial paragraph by the PAC chairperson in the PAC report when it was finally tabled in Parliament,” he added in reference to allegations on Good Star Limited’s ownership, first raised by Sarawak Report and The Wall Street Journal .

PAC chairperson Hasan Ariffin confirmed he had deleted two lines in the inquiry report, one which concerned Bank Negara's information that Good Star, in which US$1.03 billion from 1MDB's joint venture with PetroSaudi International was diverted to, was owned by an individual and not linked to the PetroSaudi group as claimed.

1MDB, the brainchild of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, has often claimed that the allegations against the firm are politically motivated.