Saturday, August 02, 2014

Australia’s sticky plastic money trail...

The Australian government’s efforts to contain the regional political fallout from the country’s first big foreign bribery trial has boomeranged, with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono demanding to know why his name has been mentioned in an unusual blanket suppression order issued by the judge who will hear the case.

As Asia Sentinel reported on July 30, the case is also resonating in Malaysia, where the names of the current prime minister, Najib Razak, and his two predecessors, Abdullah Badawi and Mahathir Mohammad, are listed in the court order. In a third country, Vietnam, the names of top Communist Party figures are also listed. (See: Australia ‘Gags’ a Massive Banknote Scandal)

The suppression order, which itself is not supposed to be mentioned by the Australian media partly on grounds of “national security” and preserving key international relationships, was obtained and published on July 29 by Wikileaks. The case, involving two Reserve Bank of Australia subsidiaries, Note Printing Australia and former subsidiary Securency, has since been given wide coverage overseas and has leaked back into Australia despite authorities’ efforts to keep it bottled up.

Beyond those three countries, in committal hearings a Securency document listed agents in 17 countries: Bangladesh, India, Angola, Botswana, Dubai, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, China, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria and Chile. In other testimony, the names of Chinese central bankers and Nepalese officials have emerged, along with a long list of individuals connected to the case. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Australia ‘gags’ a massive banknote scandal...
  2. Australian university under fire for giving honorary degree to wife of Malaysian...
  3. Malaysian prime minister's wife Rosmah in scandals galore...
  4. Malaysia detains Australia senator Nick Xenophon...
  5. Malaysian chief minister's money laundering case ensnares UBS...

No comments:

Post a Comment