A Malaysian Court on Tuesday sentenced Malysia’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak 12 years in jail for abuse of power related to a multi-billion dollar financial scandal at state fund 1MDB that led to the downfall of his government two years ago.
He has also been fined a sum of almost $49.4 million after being found gulity on each of three charges of criminal breach and three charges of money laundering for illegaly receiving nearly $10 million from former 1Malaysia Deveoplement Berhad unit SRC International.
“After considering all evidence in this trial, I find that the prosecution has successfully proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” judge Mohamad Nazlan Mohamad Ghazali told the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
The ex-PM has challanged the verdict, saying he was misled by financial advisers. He will remain free on bail until a lengthy appeal process is complete.
Najib’s lawyers has claimed that he was misled by Malaysian financier Jho Low, the alleged ringleader of the scam, who told Najib that the money was donated by the Saudi royal family and not misappropriated from the 1MDB fund.
“I am surely not satisfied with the result,” Najib told reporters.
“This is definitely not the end of the world, because there’s a process of appeal, and we hope that we would be successful then,” he added.
The said corruption scandal has attracted actions from the US to Australia, Europe and Asia, over the money laundering and fraud linked to the fund. Questions first started to surface in 2015 over missing funds when 1MDB missed payments to bank and bankh olders. Prosecutors in the US an Malaysia have revealed that the missing billions have been used in the purchase of luxury items including a $27 million pink diamond for Najib’s wife, luxury cars, art and even to fund Leonardo Decaprio starrer Hollywood film The Wolf of Wall Street.
The fiasco has also invited investigation into Jho Low who was the financial advisor to Najib.
