The 69-year-old,who led Malaysia between 2009 and 2018,was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2019 after being found guilty in the first of five trials connected to the looting of the country’s sovereign wealth fund.
Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak,centre,last week.AP
He had been granted bail while mounting two appeals and continued to serve as an influential MP with the United Malays National Organisation,the all-powerful party that has dominated politics in the country for most of its 65 years since independence.
However,Malaysia’s highest court upheld the conviction on Tuesday,ordering Najib to serve his sentence.
His jailing is a landmark moment for the South-east Asian nation,which has been dogged for years by a scandal whose tentacles reached Hollywood,New York,London and the Middle East,and led to a historic election loss for his party in 2018. As much as $US4.5 billion ($6.5 billion in today’s money) was stolen from state coffers and splashed on high-end properties,yachts,private jets and
Najib had been convicted of seven charges of criminal breach of trust,money laundering and abuse of power relating to the misappropriation of 42 million ringgits ($14 million) from SRC International,a subsidiary of 1MDB,the fund he established soon after becoming prime minister 13 years ago.
Najib Razak’s loss in his final appeal means he will have to begin serving his sentence immediately,becoming the first former prime minister to be jailed.AP
The five-member Federal Court panel said it unanimously found his appeal “devoid of any merits” and rejected his application for a stay of sentence.
Najib,whose wife Rosmah Mansor is also facing her own trial over the scandal,turned up to Malaysia’s Palace of Justice on Tuesday to a raucous reception from supporters who had been transported to the court complex at Putrajaya,the administrative centre,on buses.
They chanted “long live Bossku” – as Najib is widely known by loyalists – as he arrived for a hearing he had repeatedly attempted to delay.
He unsuccessfully bid for a retrial and then a postponement,and is recently hired lead counsel Tuan Haji Hisyam Teh tried to discharge himself from the hearing,arguing he hadn’t had enough time to prepare,and refused to make submissions supporting Najib’s appeal.
With those moves coming to nothing,Najib had one last audacious ploy up his sleeve on Tuesday:to try to force Chief Justice Maimun Tuan Mat,who was fronting the five-member court panel,to recuse herself.
In his last-ditch application he claimed that Maimun – the first woman to hold Malaysia’s highest judicial office – could be seen as biased. He produced a Facebook post from 2018 in which her husband had said Najib “siphoned sovereign government funds” into his personal account.
But that was dismissed by the four other judges on the bench who,along with Maimun,found the original High Court decision to convict Najib to be correct.
“In the circumstances,and having pored through the evidence,the submissions and the rest of the records of appeal,we find the appellant’s complaints as contained in the petition of appeal devoid of any merit,” they said in their judgment.
“On the totality of the evidence,we find the conviction of the appellant on all seven charges safe. We also find that the sentence imposed is not manifestly excessive.”
Addressing the court moments before the final verdict was delivered,Najib said he was the victim of an injustice.
- with AP,Reuters