The head of Malaysia's anti-corruption commission says the former leader is “among those under investigation”.
Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is being investigated in connection with a corruption investigation into his sons, the country's anti-corruption agency has confirmed.
Azam Baki, chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), said on Thursday that Mahathir was “among those investigated”.
“First, let the investigation end until the time is right when we can state the conclusions of the case,” Azam told reporters in the northeastern state of Kelantan.
A spokesman for Mahathir, who led the Southeast Asian country from 1981 to 2003 and again from 2018 to 2020, declined to comment.
In January, the MACC ordered Mahathir's two eldest sons, Mirzan Mahathir and Mokhzani Mahathir, to declare their assets as part of investigations sparked by the Pandora and Panama Papers leaks.
Mahathir, 98, is known as a vocal critic of sitting Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was elected in 2022 on a platform of rooting out corruption among the upper echelons of power.
Anwar, who served as Mahathir's deputy in the 1990s before he was jailed, has rejected accusations of using his anti-corruption campaign as a pretext to target political rivals and insisted he intervenes in legal cases.
In February, the MACC charged former finance minister and Mahathir ally Daim Zainuddin and his wife with failing to disclose assets.
Mokhzani Mahathir, Mahathir's second-oldest son, told Bloomberg News in an interview last month that his father was the “primary suspect” in the investigation.
