- Former Prime Minister Najib charged with four counts of corruption.
- The former prime minister also faces 21 charges of money laundering.
- 4.5 billion dollars stolen; More than a billion dollars give way to accounts linked to Najib.
KUALA LUMPUR: Jailed former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was found guilty of abuse of power on Friday in the largest trial yet over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, a ruling that could have major political repercussions.
The judge had yet to deliver the full verdict and sentence.
Investigators in Malaysia and the United States say at least $4.5 billion was stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a state fund that Najib co-founded in 2009 while in office. More than $1 billion allegedly found its way 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 any wrongdoing.
“The defendant’s claim that the charges against him were a witch hunt and were politically motivated was discredited by the cold, hard and incontrovertible evidence against him which pointed to the defendant having abused his own powerful position at 1MDB, together with the extensive powers conferred upon him,” Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said in an ongoing reading of the verdict.
Najib could face maximum prison terms of between 15 and 20 years on each count, as well as a fine of up to five times the value of the alleged misappropriations.
Najib, 72, has been in prison since August 2022, when Malaysia’s top court upheld a verdict convicting him of corruption for illegally receiving funds from a 1MDB unit. His 12-year prison sentence in that case was cut in half last year by a pardon board.
Link with fugitive financier
Last year, Najib apologized for mishandling the scandal while in office but consistently denied any wrongdoing, repeatedly saying he was misled by 1MDB officials and fugitive financier, Jho Low, about the origin of the funds.
Judge Sequerah, reading the verdict, had earlier said evidence had revealed that Najib had an “unmistakable link and connection” with Low, who acted as the then prime minister’s “representative and intermediary” in the affairs of 1MDB.
Low, who has been charged in the United States for his central role in the case, denies any wrongdoing and his whereabouts are unknown.
Najib has maintained that Low and other 1MDB officials misled him into believing that funds deposited in his account were donations from the Saudi royal family.
But Sequerah said Najib’s argument was “implausible” and dismissed letters about donations presented by Najib that purportedly came from the Saudi royal family, saying they were not corroborated by evidence and were probably forgeries.
“The irresistible conclusion is that the Arab donation narrative is not meritorious… the evidence pointed unequivocally to the fact that the money was, in fact, derived from 1MDB funds,” Sequerah said.
The government test
The verdict came just days after another court denied an attempt by Najib to serve his jail sentence under house arrest, a decision that reignited tensions within the administration of current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organization, campaigned against Anwar in the 2022 election but joined his coalition to form a government after the election ended in a non-consensus parliament.
Some UMNO leaders expressed disappointment at the decision to deny house arrest to Najib and others were angered by social media posts by some members of Anwar’s coalition celebrating the earlier ruling.
Anwar on Tuesday called for calm and urged all parties to accept the court verdict with “full patience and wisdom.”
