The seven officials from Bank Negara Malaysia who have been questioned by the police over the purported information leaks are being investigated under the Financial Services Act (FSA), revealed inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar.

 

Earlier today, Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz said seven of her officials had been questioned by the police. She added they had not questioned her.

 

Khalid said that the police are now authorised to investigate the officials from Bank Negara under the FSA which was previously under the jurisdiction of Bank Negara itself.

 

This was because the police had been given the power to use the FSA from the Bank Negara governor, he explained.

 

"Before this, we could only investigate under the Computer Crime Act. But now we can investigate under the FSA," he said in a press conference in Subang Jaya today.

 

However, he again insisted they were not just investigating Bank Negara officials.

 

"Like I have said, we are also calling in officials from commercial banks and also other witnesses," he elaborated.

 

Earlier this month, Khalid had confirmed that they were bringing in Bank Negara officials to assist with police investigations, although he did not reveal further details.

 

This was amid the much publicised arrests of Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) officers.

 

Both Bank Negara and MACC were part of a multi-agency special task force that was probing the allegations against 1MDB and claims that RM2.6 billion was deposited into Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's personal account. 

 

The police and Attorney-General's Chambers were also part of the special task force which has since been disbanded . 

 

Attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, who had coordinated the task force on legal matters, had also been sacked from his position two weeks ago.

 

Khalid also commented on Swiss national Xavier Justo ( photo ), whose hearing is fixed on Aug 17.

 

He said there was no hurry in deciding what to do with Justo, who is being charged in Thailand with attempting to blackmail his former employer PetroSaudi International.

 

"Let the Thai police do their job first, and then we will decide if we want to record (Justo's) statement or not," he said.

 

Asked if this was because the police did not think they could get anything interesting from Justo, he denied it.

 

"There is, but there’s no hurry," he explained.