“I would like to reiterate that I did not know nor did I ask for it to be transferred to my personal account.”
Speaking outside the court in the country’s administrative and judicial capital Putrajaya,south of Kuala Lumpur,prosecutor V Sithambaram said “the facts speak for themselves”.
“Two courts … four judges … have found that the evidence presented against Najib is justified,” he said.
An MP on bail
Despite the outcome,Najib isn’t being hauled off to prison. Nor has he been ordered to pay the fine of 210 million ringgits that accompanied his custodial sentence handed down in July 2020.
He has been out on 2 million ringgit bail since being found guilty last year and will remain free while he launches another appeal to Malaysia’s highest court,the Federal Court,after being granted another stay of execution.
He will also be able to continue as a member of Parliament and a key figure in the ruling United Malays National Organisation party,which has resumed the political reins in Malaysia,having being removed by voters over the 1MDB affair after six decades in charge in 2018.
“He will not lose his[parliamentary] seat until all appeals are exhausted. But until the conviction[is] set aside,he can’t contest in any elections,” said Malaysian lawyer Lim Wei Jiet.
Professor James Chin,an expert on Malaysian politics at the University of Tasmania,believes there will be surprise and anger among many ordinary Malaysians that Najib is “still walking around” and can continue to be an MP.
He retains a powerful political presence,having last month fronted a campaign for a key state election in Malacca in which the UMNO-led coalition won 75 per cent of the seats,thrashing Anwar Ibrahim’s opposition bloc.
The landslide result fuelled speculation that Najib could seek to mount a return as prime minister should he win his appeal and beat the 35 other charges he is facing in upcoming trials.
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The verdict on Wednesday appears to strike a hammer blow to those ambitions,although Najib retains immense popularity,including by far the greatest social media outreach of any Malay politician.
“Politically,the best way to see today’s result is Najib’s star was on the way up yesterday. Today his star has been stopped dead in its tracks. But this does not mean that he can’t make a comeback,” Chin said.
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He was alleged to have led the spending spree from the cash stolen from 1MDB,splurging it on high-end properties in New York,Los Angeles in London,a 91-metre superyacht and a private jet,and to finance an ostentatious lifestyle in which he rubbed shoulders with Hollywood celebrities and funded movies such as Martin Scorsese’sThe Wolf of Wall Street,which was produced by Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz.
When the mass fraud came to light,Leonardo DiCaprio,the lead actor in that film,returned to US
authorities gifts he received from Jho Low including a $US3.2 million Picasso painting.
In 2017,Australian model Miranda Kerr also handed back $US8.1 million in jewellery gifted to her by the now fugitive businessman.