Najib Abdul Razak today sought to engage with Chinese youths but some participants decided to slip in pointed questions to the prime minister, including one on whether he was really “Malaysian Official 1” (MO1).

These queries were not picked up by the committee in charge of selecting the questions but several of them were displayed in full view of the audience due to the format of the event.

Audience members were asked to send in their questions through social messaging app WeChat, which then appeared on a large screen behind the stage. The organisers then scrolled through the list in real-time to pick the questions.

During this process, several pointed questions appeared on the screen but were not posed to the prime minister.

These include the question “Abdul Rahman Dahlan, our senior government minister in cabinet, said ‘I agree that MO1 is the prime minister’. Is that true?”

The person behind the question, using the pseudonym ‘MO1’, appeared to have sent in the same question several times, but it was not entertained.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) had listed MO1 as among the recipients of at least US$4 billion in funds allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB.

Najib had denied wrongdoing or taking public funds for personal gain.

Another question which was not posed to Najib was about the extension of Md Raus Sharif and Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin as Chief Justice and Court of Appeal president respectively beyond their constitutional age limit of 66 years and six months...