Law minister orders legal assistance to France, Switzerland, Luxembourg
De facto law minister Liew Vui Keong has ordered for mutual legal assistance (MLA) to be provided to France and Switzerland.
However, it is still unclear whether the minister’s order is related to pending requests from the two countries to help in investigations on the Scorpene and 1MDB scandals.
The two separate orders were made under Section 18 of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 2002. They are dated March 25 and were gazetted on April 2...
De facto law minister Liew Vui Keong has ordered for mutual legal assistance (MLA) to be provided to France, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
However, it is still unclear whether the minister’s order is related to pending requests from the three countries to help in investigations on the Scorpene and 1MDB scandals.
The three separate orders were made under Section 18 of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 2002. They are dated March 25 and were gazetted on April 2.
The orders state that upon the recommendation of the Attorney-General, assistance is to be rendered to these countries “without any restriction, limitation, exception, modification, adaptation, condition, or qualification.”
Section 18 of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act allows requests for MLA to be granted even without an MLA treaty in place, by order of the minister.
According to the order published in the Gazette, the request from France concerns offences under Articles 324-1, 324-2, 324-3, 324-4, 324-5, 324-6, 324-7, 324-8, and 432-15 of the French Criminal Code.
These provisions deal with the offences of money laundering and misappropriation.
Meanwhile, the request from Switzerland concerns offences under Articles 158, 314, 322septies, 305bis, 146, and 251 of the Swiss Criminal Code.
These provisions pertain to the offences of criminal mismanagement, misconduct in public office, bribery of foreign public officials, money laundering, fraud, and forgery of documents, respectively.
The request from Luxemburg pertains to criminal offences under the country’s Articles 196 and 197 of Law of Aug 14, 2000; Article 240 of the Law of Jan 15, 2001; Article 496 of Law of July 18, 2014; and Article 506-1 of Law of Aug 12, 2003.
These provisions deal with the forgery of documents, embezzlement, fraud, and money laundering.
Apart from citing the relevant legal provisions however, the gazetted orders provide no details of the nature of alleged offences.
Malaysiakini has contacted Liew for clarification last night and is still waiting for a response.
French authorities are currently investigating the Scorpene submarine scandal as part of a wider corruption probe against French defence contractors DCNS and Thales, which allegedly paid kickbacks to top officials in several countries in exchange for contracts.
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak was the defence minister when the sale of the submarines took place.
In 2015, Thales International Asia (Thint Asia) former president Bernard Baiocco was indicted for “active bribery of foreign public officials linked to Najib Razak”.
Human rights group Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram), which had filed a complaint to French authorities over the Scorpene scandal, had previously mentioned that France had made an MLA request to Malaysia on the matter.
Switzerland had made MLA requests to Malaysia regarding its 1MDB investigation in 2016, but claimed that Malaysian authorities had refused to cooperate.
Malaysia's then attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali had said that he could not accede to the Swiss request because police were still investigating the 1MDB case.
Luxembourg had also been investigating the 1MDB scandal, and Reuters had reported in May last year that that Luxembourg authorities were keen to make inroads with the investigation following the installation of a new Malaysian government.
However, it is unclear if Luxembourg authorities had made a formal MLA request in relation to the 1MDB scandal.
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