Bersatu chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Jeli MP Mustapa Mohamed had met with him when he was still a minister in former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s cabinet.

Without going into specifics, he said Mustapa was not happy with what was happening in the BN government then but dared not to speak up.

“Even when he was in Najib’s cabinet he used to see me. He was not happy, but he was afraid.

“Many people are afraid of Najib. I was afraid too,” he told reporters at a press conference today after chairing a Pakatan Harapan presidential council meeting.

Mahathir was responding to a question on why Mustapa was allowed to join Bersatu despite having been part of Najib's government.

This was after Mahathir said any defectors wanting to join Bersatu would be vetted.

Mustapa was the minister of international trade and industry in Najib’s cabinet.

He joined Bersatu on Oct 26 after leaving Umno a month earlier to become an independent MP.

On another matter, Mahathir said Malaysia was open to taking joint action with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute the businessperson Low Taek Jho but there was no need as yet to do so.

“If there is a need for us to jointly charge him, we will do so but at this moment the charges are different.

“What is going to be important in the US is money laundering but to us, we have other problems where 1MDB money has disappeared,” he said.

Low was charged by the DOJ in absentia on Thursday. He is accused of conspiring to launder billions of dollars from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund and conspiring to violate the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

A Malaysian court also issued an arrest warrant against Low for him to face money laundering charges in the country.

Low has maintained that he is innocent.