Don’t run and hide, Guan Eng tells Jho Low

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng says previously fugitive businessman Jho Low was brave as ‘a big person’ was protecting him but is now running away as he is no longer around.

(FMT) – Don’t run and hide if you are innocent.

This was the message Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng had for businessman Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, who has refused to surrender to the authorities to answer questions over his role in the 1MDB scandal.

“Jho Low is a coward in merely making comments.

“If he is innocent, he should come forward.

“No need to run and hide,” he said when met at the Balakong by-election nomination centre at the Hulu Langat district office today.

Lim said previously Low was brave, because there was a “big person” behind him.

“Now that this ‘big person’ is no longer around, he’s running away.

“If you are right, you have no reason to be afraid (‘berani kerana benar’). He is afraid because he is guilty,” Lim added.

Low was reported to have said he would not surrender himself, saying he would not get a fair trial amid what he called a “trial by media”.

“I will not submit to any jurisdiction where guilt has been predetermined by politics and self-interest overrules the legal process,” Low said in a statement to FMT issued by a Sydney-based public relations firm.

It is the businessman’s latest attack on Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in the wake of the handover by Indonesia of the RM1 bllion Equanimity luxury yacht, which the US authorities said was bought by Low using money stolen from 1MDB.

Low also criticised The Wall Street Journal, accusing the paper of breaching journalistic ethics over a report suggesting that he was being made a bargaining chip by China ahead of Mahathir’s visit to Beijing.