Mahathir bin Mohammed, the 94-year-old Prime Minister of Malaysia, made a statement today claiming that Iranian expatriates living in his country were being “bullied” because Malaysian banks were closing their accounts. His words were amplified by the international media. However, what the Malaysian leader did not mention was that the bank accounts being closed were those of employees of the Islamic regime, who have been using banks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, to launder money, and finance terrorism. The banks are closing these accounts, partly to comply with US sanctions against the Tehran regime, but also to be in accord with the most recent directive of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), that called on banks throughout the world to perform “enhanced due diligence” with regard to Iranian account holders.
Mahathir’s remarks came a week after he met with regime president Hassan Rouhani, during which meeting, he said “I always consider myself as Iran’s friend…. Malaysia is impressed by the resistance of the Iranian government and nation against US pressure because you were well able to overcome US pressure and this resistance is commendable.”
Close ties between the two countries have endured for decades, and Malaysia has helped the regime skirt international sanctions, procure equipment for its nuclear weapons program, and funnel money to terrorist groups. Earlier this year, an Israeli intelligence analyst stated that “Malaysia is the meeting point between various terrorist organizations and the Iranians, Malaysia is a convenient place for communication, organization and training for various terror groups and states hostile to Israel. It’s a place where they share technologies and plot operations.” Indeed, Malaysia has publicly offered large amounts of aid to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which is primarily backed by the Tehran regime.
Earlier this year, Malaysia and its state-owned oil company, Petronas, was discovered to be helping Tehran secretly ship oil to China, while this summer, two Iranians were convicted in a US court of illegally shipping sanctions-blocked technology to Iran by using Malaysia as a conduit. Last year, a British man was arrested for also using Malaysia as a way-station to ship fighter jet components to Iran.
Malaysia is also a hub for Iranian drug trafficking rings, which are alleged to be connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
For his part, Mahathir bin Mohammed has always been very frank about his sympathies with radical Islamism, as well as his espousal of anti-western conspiracy theories akin to those promoted by Tehran. In 2003, he had stated that “the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them,” and in 2010, he said in regard to the September 11, 2001 attacks that “I am not sure now that Muslim terrorists carried out these attacks. There is evidence that the attacks were staged.”
Source » thefreeiranian