The widow of Malaysian tycoon and former politician Daim Zainuddin has hit back at the country’s anti-corruption agency, accusing it of being “vindictive” by continuing to seize assets from his estate in both Malaysia and the United Kingdom despite no criminal conviction.
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On Thursday, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) took control of Daim’s 58-storey Ilham Tower in Kuala Lumpur, alleging that it was tied to offences under the anti-money-laundering law.
This is despite the commission having already taken the same action in 2023, a move that the family’s lawyers said amounted to “harassment”.
“This is vindictive, unlawful and a blatant abuse of power by MACC. This is contrary to the rule of law; it is the law of the jungle,” lawyers Rajesh Nagarajan and Sachpreetraj Singh Sohanpal said in a statement on the day of the seizure.
A day before, a Malaysian court authorised the MACC to start proceedings in the UK to recover assets worth £132 million (US$179 million), including two commercial buildings, three luxury homes, two residential units and a bank account held by the Daim family-linked Ilham Foundation.
Daim, who was a two-time finance minister, died in November aged 86. He was a close confidant of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and a key architect of Malaysia’s economic boom in the 1980s – a period often criticised for its entrenched cronyism and elite enrichment.