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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Daim Zainuddin, who had two stints as finance minister and pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to disclose assets this year, died on Wednesday, his family said.
The 86-year-old helped steer the southeast Asian nation through recessions and the Asian financial crisis during his terms as finance minister from 1984 to 1991, and again, from 1999 to 2001, under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
“I have lost a friend who fought with me for race, country and religion,” Mahathir said in a statement, adding that he was “immeasurably saddened” by the death.
Daim died at 8:21 a.m. at a hospital on the outskirts of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, where his funeral is to be held at the national mosque on Wednesday, the family said in a statement, without giving the cause of death.
“In the past few weeks, he was in the intensive care unit after he had a stroke,” said his lawyer, Gurdial Singh Nijar, who earlier confirmed the death to Reuters, but added that he did not know the cause.
Daim was charged this year with failing to disclose assets under an anti-corruption law, in a graft crackdown by the government of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
He pleaded not guilty in the case, one of the highest-profile such actions against prominent figures.Anwar has denied critics’ accusations that he was using the anti-graft agency to target political rivals.
Daim, an ally of veteran leader and Anwar’s long-time foe Mahathir, was among those being investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on suspicion of having wealth in excess of that declared.
His wife, Na’imah Abdul Khalid, was also charged on the same disclosure grounds. Anwar’s government offered its condolences on the death, its spokesperson, Fahmi Fadzil, said.A lawyer turned businessman, Daim had substantial dealings and interests in sectors from banking to property.
His family owns the 60-storey Ilham Tower in Kuala Lumpur, which was seized by the anti-graft agency last December. The graft body began investigating Daim in February 2023 on the basis of information in the Pandora Papers, a massive leak of financial records in 2021 revealing offshore assets held by politicians and public figures worldwide.
In it, Daim, his associates and family were reported to have held assets worth at least 25 million pounds ($32 million).
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