KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – A former aide to Malaysian fugitive Jho Low, the financier at the centre of the multi-billion dollar 1MDB corruption scandal, has died, his lawyers said on Wednesday.
Kee Kok Thiam, 56, died in hospital of a “sudden massive stroke” on Monday, Valen, Oh & Partners said in a statement without providing further details.
Earlier in May, Kee had been repatriated to Malaysia from Macau after five years on the run. He was questioned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on arrival and his house was searched, media reported.
An Al Jazeera report on Tuesday said Kee had told the MACC that he had met Low and other 1MDB suspects in Macau. The MACC confirmed it had made the comments to Al Jazeera but did not disclose details.
Low, whose full name is Low Taek Jho, is wanted in at least three countries after Malaysian and U.S. authorities identified him as the mastermind of the theft of $4.5 billion from now-defunct fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Low has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, who co-founded 1MDB, was sentenced to 12 years in prison last year for graft linked to the scandal.
(Reporting by Hasnoor Hussain, Rozanna Latiff, A. Ananthalakshmi in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor and Edwina Gibbs)
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