An inquiry into huge losses by Malaysia’s central bank on Thursday recommended that Mahathir Mohamad face a criminal investigation, ahead of polls at which the former premier wants to oust the current government. Bank Negara’s foreign exchange activities under Mahathir between 1980s and 1993 were “excessive” and “speculative,” said the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the forex scandal. It is obvious that the purpose of the RCI into the Bank Negara forex losses in the 1990s was not so much to find out the truth as to the forex losses about a quarter of a century ago, but to distract national attention from the greatest financial scandal in Malaysian and even global history, the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal, writes Malaysia Kini.