- Former Prime Minister Najib charged with four counts of corruption.
- The former prime minister also faces 21 counts of money laundering.
- $4.5 billion stolen; over 1 billion USD makes room for accounts linked to Najib.
KUALA LUMPUR: Jailed former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was found guilty of abuse of power on Friday in the biggest trial yet in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, a verdict that could have significant political ramifications.
The judge had not yet delivered the full verdict and sentence.
Malaysian and US investigators say at least $4.5 billion was stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a state fund Najib co-founded in 2009 while in office. More than $1 billion has reportedly flowed into accounts linked to Najib, who has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Najib has been charged with four counts of corruption and 21 counts of money laundering for receiving illegal transfers of more than 2.3 billion ringgit ($569.45 million) from 1MDB. He had consistently denied wrongdoing.
“The accused’s claim that the charges against him were a witch hunt and politically motivated were belied by the cold, hard and incontrovertible evidence against him that pointed to the accused abusing his own powerful position in 1MDB, combined with the extensive powers vested in him,” Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said in a sentencing reading.
Najib faces maximum prison terms of between 15 and 20 years for each charge, as well as a fine of up to five times the value of the alleged misappropriation.
Najib, 72, has been in prison since August 2022, when Malaysia’s Supreme Court upheld a verdict convicting him of corruption for illegally receiving funds from a 1MDB entity. His 12-year prison sentence in that case was cut in half last year by a clemency board.
Connection with fugitive financier
Najib apologized last year for mishandling the scandal while in office, but had consistently denied wrongdoing and repeatedly said he was misled by 1MDB officials and fugitive financier Jho Low about the source of the funds.
Judge Sequerah, in reading the judgment, had earlier said that evidence had revealed that Najib had an “unmistakable bond and connection” with Low, who acted as the then prime minister’s “proxy and intermediary” in 1MDB matters.
Low, who has been charged in the US for his central role in the case, denies wrongdoing and his whereabouts are unknown.
Najib has maintained that he was misled by Low and other 1MDB officials into believing that funds deposited into his account were donations from the Saudi royal family.
But Sequerah said Najib’s argument was “implausible” and dismissed letters of donations produced by Najib purporting to be from the Saudi royal family, saying they were not corroborated by evidence and were likely forgeries.
“The irresistible conclusion is that the Arab donation narrative has no merit … the evidence pointed unmistakably to the fact that the money did indeed originate from 1MDB funds,” Sequerah said.
Government test
The sentence came days after another court rejected a bid by Najib to serve his prison sentence under house arrest – a decision that reignited tensions in current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration.
Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organisation, campaigned against Anwar in a 2022 election but joined his coalition to form a government after the poll ended in a hung parliament.
Some UMNO leaders expressed disappointment at the decision to deny Najib house arrest, and others were angered by social media posts by some members of Anwar’s coalition celebrating the earlier sentence.
Anwar called for calm on Tuesday and urged all parties to accept the court’s verdict with “full patience and wisdom”.
