It's important Malaysian justice is seen to be done. Even if it's Jho Low and Najib Razak
She had read Billion Dollar Whale, the international bestseller by former Wall Street Journal journalists Bradley Hope and Tom Wright that details the high-level impunity that went on in the case.
Unsatisfied, she also watched documentaries that added sound and colour to the tales of audacity among the key protagonists as they went about stealing from the Malaysian state fund between 2009 and 2015.
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Aren't the transnational transgressions so severe that countries' law enforcement agencies would put their differences aside and work together to locate him?
On the cherubic fugitive Low, my response to my friend was that I was equally stumped.
Hence, even if we viscerally feel that Najib should be behind bars now - instead of remaining a potent political force as he is currently - the 67-year-old is completely within his rights to exhaust ways to clear himself.
This is also why I find myself on his side of the ring in his civil suit in the Southern District of New York to subpoena information that he believes will exonerate him.
It is puzzling that US federal prosecutors - who are conducting their own probe into the scandal - intervened to block that effort, saying there is "sensitive information" contained in the evidence.
Malaysian media have reported that the evidence Najib is seeking could include names of people who had siphoned funds from 1MDB and names of their beneficiaries.
As the adage goes, whether it involves Najib, Low or anyone else accused of any sort of transgression, it is important not only that justice is done but that it is seen to be done.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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