Opposition misleading Malaysians on DoJ announcement, says Salleh

He said the opposition was in a mess and appeared to be on the brink of a breakup and therefore they needed this distraction to take attention away from the problems they were facing.

"And this is all that the DoJ announcement is; an attempt to smear the Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Razak) and distract Malaysians from the fact that the opposition is in dire straits," he said in his blog https://sskeruak.blogspot.my/.

Salleh said the implications to this was that those against Najib were trying to get the United States involved in Malaysia's internal politics and this was an act of treason.

"They did the same in July last year and the intention was to use the DoJ announcement to attack Datuk Seri Najib. It failed last year and they are trying it again, hoping that this time it will work.

"There is actually no substance in the allegation and even the DoJ said it is a civil action based on complaints and not based on any court decision. In fact, no court action has even been launched yet," said Salleh, who is also Sabah Umno deputy chairman.

He said the DoJ was acting based merely on the complaints received.

"And the DoJ made it clear that a civil forfeiture complaint is merely an allegation that money or property was involved in or represents the proceeds of a crime and that these allegations are not proven until a court says so," he explained.

He was referring to the US Department of Justice's latest filing of lawsuits to recover assets allegedly embezzled from 1MDB.