Former Malaysia PM Najib Razak Jailed for 15 Years in Country’s Biggest Corruption Case

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after a court found him guilty in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country’s history, linked to the 1MDB financial scandal.

The verdict was delivered by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Friday. The court held Najib guilty of illegally diverting massive sums of money from the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) into his personal bank accounts. Prosecutors said around 2.2 billion Malaysian ringgit, equivalent to about USD 543 million, was misused.

The court convicted Najib on multiple counts, including abuse of power and money laundering. While announcing the sentence, Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah dismissed Najib’s claim that the case was politically motivated. The judge said the evidence clearly showed that Najib had used his position to gain personal benefit.

According to the prosecution, Najib took advantage of his roles as prime minister, finance minister and chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board to control the fund and siphon off public money more than a decade ago. The court sentenced him to 15 years in jail for abuse of power, while the money laundering charges carried additional prison terms. All sentences will run simultaneously.

This is the second major conviction for Najib in connection with the 1MDB scandal. In an earlier case in 2020, he was found guilty of misappropriating nearly USD 10 million from the same fund and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, a term that was later reduced.

Although Najib publicly apologised to Malaysians last year over the 1MDB controversy, he maintained during the trial that he was misled by fugitive financier Jho Low, who has been wanted by Interpol for several years.

The 1MDB scandal has been described as one of the world’s largest financial fraud cases and has had far-reaching political and legal consequences in Malaysia and beyond.

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