Speaking to FMT, Wan Saiful said the closeness of ties between the two countries was evident with the DoJ’s documents not mentioning Prime Minister Najib Razak’s name among the names of the accused in the case.

He said he was surprised as Riza Aziz, who is Najib’s stepson, was mentioned, but Najib was not.

Riza has been accused of using 1MDB funds to finance his company, Red Granite’s “Wolf of Wall Street” movie.

“It seems there are political and diplomatic considerations in the preparation of the DoJ’s court documents.”

The DoJ’s documents also named controversial businessman, Low Taek Jho (better known as Jho Low) and a senior Malaysian government official named “Malaysian Official 1.”

Wan Saiful said anyone who read the entire DoJ documents could make their own conclusions as to who “Malaysian Official 1” was, and added that bilateral ties between the two countries were bigger than the claims of misappropriation of 1MDB funds.

“It may be considered unwise for relations between two countries to be affected due to one case which involves a few individuals.”

Bilateral ties between the US and Malaysia have hit new highs in the past decade ever since Najib took over as prime minister in 2009, a year after US President Barrack Obama took office.

In December 2014, the two leaders played golf in Hawaii, and Obama also visited Malaysia twice.

The DoJ filed suits yesterday, claiming that over USD3.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB.

In its suits, filed in Los Angeles, the DoJ said it sought to seize assets “involved in and traceable to an international conspiracy to launder money misappropriated from 1MDB.”