Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) will seek the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's support for the class action suit in the United States initiated by lawyer Matthias Chang and Salor assemblyperson Husam Musa.

The party's international bureau chief Raja Kamarul Bahrin Raja Ahmad Shah said Amanah is also mulling taking similar legal action abroad in jurisdictions involved in the 1MDB scandal, including in the US, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore.

"These are the possibilities that we are looking into, with the help of certain lawyers.

"Therefore, we are hopeful in seeking the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's assent to support the initiative by Husam and Chang to return the stolen assets to Malaysia," Raja Kamarul Bahrin told a press conference today.

The letter to the Agong will be signed by Amanah's six parliamentarians. The party will also seek the support of other MPs in the bid, including those from BN.

Raja Kamarul Bahrin said a draft of the letter had already been prepared, and he hoped the letter could be sent to the Agong soon.He added that the 1MDB issue is not new for Malaysian’s royal institution.

On Oct 6 last year, he pointed out, the Conference of Rulers issued a decree urging the government to resolve the 1MDB issue and punish any wrongdoers.

Amanah communications chief Khalid Samad said the Agong's support would strengthen Husam and Chang's claim, in case the legitimacy or the locus standi of their lawsuit was questioned.

'Government inaction'

He said Husam, Chang, and Amanah’s actions were borne out of disappointment towards the government’s inaction on the 1MDB issue.

He pointed out that investigations are still ongoing in Malaysia, although the US, Singapore, and Swiss authorities have already taken action.

Amanah strategy director Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad added that the Public Accounts Committee report on 1MDB already provides enough grounds to take action against the state investment fund.

This was even before the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its lawsuits to sieze assets purportedly purchased with funds siphoned from 1MDB, he said.

Khalid said attorney-general Mohd Apandi Ali must act on the 1MDB issue, otherwise the general public will believe he was appointed last year to cover up the scandal.

“If there is no action, then don’t fault the rakyat if they perceive that this is the reason why the attorney-general (Abdul Gani Patail) was replaced. It is not the fault of the rakyat,” the Shah Alam MP said.

Khalid also warned against stirring nationalist sentiments to divert the issue, which he said was unacceptable.

He said the US was merely enforcing its own laws that had been broken in its own territory.

“The issue of foreign intervention (in Malaysia) does not arise. This is just using the nationalist spirit to protect national robbers, who had robbed the country.

“This is absolutely unacceptable. We have to stress this so that the people can understand it,” he said.

Husam and Chang filed their class action suit in New York on Aug 11. They claimed to be acting on behalf of the Malaysian citizenry, against eight defendants including Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s stepson Riza Aziz, and the Penang-born tycoon Low Taek Jho.

The allegations contained in their court filing are heavily based on those made in the DOJ civil forfeiture suits, which were filed July 20.

The DOJ's civil forfeiture suits seek to seize some US$1.5 billion in assets that are supposedly traced to a US$3.5 billion misappropriation from 1MDB.

Chang and Husam’s class action suit, meanwhile, seeks the disgorgement of allegedly stolen 1MDB funds from the defendants, and for the defendants to pay damages for alleged wrongdoings.

The cases are still pending in court.

Apandi had responded to the DOJ's court filing, saying that there is no evidence of misappropriation from 1MDB, while pointing out that a police investigation is still underway.