Datuk Tong Kooi Ong said he had told Datuk Seri Najib Razak about 1MDB. However, the remark upset Najib and Tong was told to leave.— Picture by Firdaus Latif

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 24 ― The Edge Media Group Datuk Tong Kooi Ong has slammed Datuk Seri Najib Razak for feigning ignorance over 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), saying that he had tried to explain the situation but was ignored by the latter.

In an opinion piece in his weekly paper The Edge today, Tong said he was asked by Baling MP Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim to meet Najib after the paper’s reports on 1MDB had made many in Umno uncomfortable.

“I shared with him information that I believed was proof that it was all a scam, with Jho Low at the centre of it. I explained how the accounts were made up to report a profit and why I believed the cash was all gone,” Tong wrote.

“After about half an hour, he relented and told me he would shut down 1MDB. He didn’t say what he was going to do about the debts.

“I then proceeded to tell Najib that Jho Low must be held accountable and be prosecuted. This upset him. He immediately stood up, walked to the door and asked me to leave,” he added.

Tong said the meeting happened at 10.45pm on March 6, 2015 at Najib’s house in Jalan Duta.

The meeting was only between the two of them, and Najib had started by telling him that the paper was wrong about 1MDB and no theft has happened there.

Tong also wrote that Najib’s media adviser Paul Stadlen had then met him on several occasions, where the latter had started off trying to persuade him on 1MDB but later moved to threats.

“While The Edge’s reporting was focused on 1MDB and Jho Low, Stadlen made it very clear that any attack on Jho Low was an attack on Najib, and that he was conveying this message from his boss,” he said.

In July 2015, the Home Ministry had later suspended the publishing permits of The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily.

Najib had told Sinar Harian in an interview earlier this week that his relationship with Malaysia’s most wanted man Low Taek Jho was strictly professional and was forged with the country’s economic interests in mind.

The former prime minister also blamed US investment banking goliath Goldman Sachs for failing to safeguard Malaysia’s interests by not alerting his administration of Low’s efforts to defraud the Malaysian investment firm.