Ex-PM Najib Razak ordered to serve 15 years in jail, fined RM11.4 billion in 1MDB case

[KUALA LUMPUR] A Malaysian court on Friday (Dec 26) sentenced former premier Najib Razak to serve 15 years in prison after convicting him on multiple counts of abuse of power and money laundering over his role in the multibillion-dollar fraud scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB.

The judge sentenced Najib to 15 years in jail on each of the four counts of abuse of power and five years in prison for each of the 21 charges of money laundering, all of which would be served concurrently.

He was also fined RM11.4 billion (S$3.6 billion), in default of which he would serve an additional 40 years in prison.

Najib, 72, has been in prison since August 2022 after a conviction in an earlier case involving 1MDB, which he co-founded in 2009 while premier. He has denied any wrongdoing. 

Malaysia and US investigators said at least US$4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB. More than US$1 billion allegedly made its way into accounts linked to Najib.

“The contention by the accused that the charges against him were a witch hunt and politically motivated were debunked by the cold, hard and incontrovertible evidence against him that pointed towards the accused having abused his own powerful position in 1MDB, coupled with the extensive powers conferred upon him,” Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said when reading out the verdict.

Najib had his earlier 12-year jail sentence halved last year by a pardons board.

Najib last year apologised for mishandling the scandal while in office but had consistently denied wrongdoing, saying repeatedly that he was misled by 1MDB officials and the fugitive financier, Jho Low, about the source of the funds.

Judge Sequerah said evidence had revealed Najib had an “unmistakable bond and connection” with Low, who acted as the then prime minister’s “proxy and intermediary” in 1MDB affairs.

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Low, who has been charged in the United States for his central role in the case, denies all wrongdoing and his whereabouts are unknown.

Najib has maintained 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 on the donations produced by Najib that allegedly originated 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 unmistakably to the fact that the monies were, in fact derived from 1MDB funds,” Sequerah said.

The verdict came just days after another court denied a bid by Najib to serve his jail sentence under house arrest – a decision that reignited tensions within current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration.

Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), 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 with 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 ruling.

Anwar on Tuesday called for calm, urging all parties to accept the court verdict with “full patience and wisdom”. REUTERS, THE STRAITS TIMES