Guilty verdict for Najib caps dramatic turn in fortunes
As the judge read out a verdict of guilty on all charges, former prime minister Najib Razak sat silently in the dock at the end of the first of five graft trials linked to scandal-tainted state fund 1MDB.
Najib offered no visible reaction. Masked against the coronavirus, wearing a brown suit with a red and black striped tie, he had recited a brief prayer, flanked by leaders of his political party, before he entered the dock.
As the judge read out a verdict of guilty on all charges, former prime minister Najib Razak sat silently in the dock at the end of the first of five graft trials linked to scandal-tainted state fund 1MDB.
Najib offered no visible reaction. Masked against the coronavirus, wearing a brown suit with a red and black striped tie, he had recited a brief prayer, flanked by leaders of his political party, before he entered the dock.
High Court judge Mohamad Nazlan Mohamad Ghazali sentenced Najib to 12 years jail and a RM210 million fine for abuse of power for receiving nearly RM42 million from SRC International, a former unit of the state fund.
Najib was also slapped with a 10-year jail term for each of the three charges of criminal breach of trust and three charges of money laundering.
Mohamad Nazlan ordered the sentences to run concurrently and allowed a stay on the jail term and fine pending an appeal.
“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,” Najib told reporters outside the court.
“We are always positive, we believe in our innocence, we believe that we have a strong case.”
Najib, 67, has suffered a dramatic slide in fortunes since he was first charged in 2018, after he led his BN ruling coalition to its first election defeat in six decades since independence from Britain.
He had faced a public backlash over accusations of rampant corruption in his administration and his family’s opulent lifestyle of overseas holidays and luxury shopping sprees.
In the weeks after the election loss, authorities seized hundreds of luxury handbags, jewellery and millions of dollars in cash during raids on properties linked to his family.
Najib was later arrested, and a raft of corruption charges linked to 1MDB, which he co-founded in 2009, followed.
Before his arrest, Najib told Reuters there was nothing improper about the seized luxury items or cash, which authorities had valued at up to RM1.2 billion.
“I didn’t benefit from 1MDB, because I believe that 1MDB was created to do something good for the country,” he said.
Charmed life
The eldest son of Malaysia’s second prime minister, Abdul Razak Hussein, Najib was groomed for high office from his political debut, aged 23.
Until recently, he was the youngest person elected to parliament. He was also one of the youngest to be appointed a federal deputy minister, and later the youngest to head his home state of Pahang as chief minister.
The smooth upward trajectory of the British-educated son of nobility culminated in 2009 when he succeeded Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who stepped down a year after a bruising election that cost their ruling coalition a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Najib struck a reformist tone, pushing for liberal economic policies and repealing colonial-era security laws in a bid to shed the perception of a government unwilling to brook dissent.
But the disenchantment of the country’s ethnic minorities in a 2013 election prompted Najib to roll back his reform pledges in the face of anger over a perceived loss of long-held economic privileges by the majority ethnic Malays, who form the power base of his Umno party.
The majority Muslim Malays form 60% of a population of about 32 million, with the rest mostly made up of ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians.
Just two years after the 2013 election, the first signs of scandal began to surface at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Najib acted quickly to try to stop the fallout, but it was too late and voters, livid at the graft accusations, threw out his ruling coalition.
A swift crackdown followed for Najib and his family at the hands of his mentor-turned-foe, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the veteran politician who led a loose opposition pact to power that year.
Yet Najib remains popular in some quarters. His regular jabs at the opposition and lighthearted updates on Facebook have drawn more than 4 million followers, more than any other Malaysian politician.
“Last week my Facebook attracted 20 million engagements,” Najib said in an interview in March. “Normally I get about 9.5 million a week.”
Timeline of Najib’s downfall
2009
July - Three months after becoming prime minister, Najib launches 1MDB to invest in energy, real estate and other industries.
2015
March - Malaysia forms special task force - including officials from central bank, police, anti-grant agency and the Attorney-General's Chambers - to look into 1MDB.
July - The Wall Street Journal reports nearly US$700 million of 1MDB money went into Najib’s personal bank account.
2016
January - Malaysia’s attorney-general clears Najib of wrongdoing, saying US$681 million in his account was a donation from Saudi royal family member and Najib had returned US$620 million in a few months.
2017
June - US Justice Department says more than US$4.5 billion was siphoned off from 1MDB by high-level fund officials and their associates.
August - The Justice Department says conducting a criminal probe into 1MDB.
2018
May - Najib unexpectedly loses election to Mahathir, who immediately reopens probe into 1MDB.
June - Police say nearly US$275 million of assets found at properties linked to Najib, including jewellery, luxury handbags, watches and nearly US$30 million in cash.
July - Malaysian authorities arrest Najib in relation to SRC probe.
September - Anti-corruption agency says Najib faces further corruption charges related to 1MDB.
November - Malaysian authorities say Najib had ordered changes to 1MDB audit report in 2016.
December - Prosecutors file new graft charges against Najib, over the alleged theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB. AG files criminal charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc for misleading investors over three bond sales totalling $6.5 billion raised for 1MDB. Goldman had pleaded not guilty.
2019
April - SRC trial begins.
2020
January - Anti-graft agency reveals in audio clips that Najib sought help from the United Arab Emirates' crown prince to fake evidence to cover up for the 1MDB scandal.
May - Stepson Riza Aziz agrees to testify against Najib in one of the 1MDB trials, after a Malaysian court agreed to drop a US$248-million money laundering case.
July - Goldman Sachs agrees to pay US$3.9 billion to settle Malaysia's criminal probe. Court in SRC trial finds Najib guilty on seven charges. Najib said he would appeal to the Federal Court and the court stays his sentence.
- Reuters
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