Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday acquitted in the latest trial in response to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.
Najib, who is serving a 12-year prison term after losing the final appeal in his first of several corruption trials linked to the 1MDB scandal, was found not guilty on the charge of tampering with an audit report to cover up wrongdoings.
Defense lawyer Mohamad Shafee Abdullah said the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that prosecutors did not have sufficient evidence to prove that Najib is guilty of abusing his position as prime minister and finance minister to order amendments to the 1MDB audit report in 2016 before it was presented to parliament.
Photo: AP
“My client is very grateful to Allah for the decision today because it really uplifted his spirit and the desire to fight for his innocence,” Shafee told a news conference.
The 1MDB development fund was set up months after Najib became prime minister in 2009.
Investigators allege that more than US$4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates through layers of bank accounts in the US and other countries to finance Hollywood films and extravagant purchases that included hotels, a luxury yacht, art and jewelry.
More than US$700 million allegedly landed in Najib’s bank accounts.
RECORD FINE
He and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, were hit with multiple graft charges after the saga led to his ruling coalition’s shocking defeat in 2018 general elections.
Rosmah was last year sentenced to 10 years in prison and a record fine of 970 million ringgit (US$216.7 million) for corruption over a solar energy project.
She is out on bail pending an appeal.
Shafee said financer Low Taek Jho (劉特佐) — believed to be the mastermind behind the scandal — remained at large.
APPEAL
Former 1MDB chief executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy, who was jointly charged with abetting Najib and appeared as a prosecution witness during the trial, was also acquitted by the court yesterday.
Shafee said the charges against Najib were politically motivated.
Najib is seeking a review of the top court’s decision in August to reject his final appeal and is hoping for a favorable outcome later this month, he added.
It is usually a serene two-and-a-half-hour ride on Japan’s famously efficient bullet train, but on Saturday, the journey quickly descended into a zombie apocalypse, with passengers screaming in terror. Organizers of the adrenaline-filled trip, less than two weeks before Halloween, touted it as the world’s first haunted house experience on a running Shinkansen. On board one chartered car of the Shinkansen, about 40 thrill-seekers were ready to brave an encounter with the living dead between Tokyo and the western metropolis of Osaka. The eerie experience was inspired by the hit 2016 South Korean action-horror movie Train to Busan, in which a father and
IRANIAN THREATS: Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami said that it would be a ‘mistake’ for Israel to attack Iran and if it did ‘we will strike you again painfully’ Israel yesterday bombed a Syrian coastal city, while the US conducted multiple strikes on targets in Yemen nearly a month into Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza all belong to the so-called “axis of resistance” led by Iran, which on Oct. 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel. Israel has vowed to retaliate for the strike. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami yesterday said in a speech that Tehran would hit Israel “painfully” if it attacks Iranian targets. “If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in
NEW RECRUITS: A video released by Ukrainian officials allegedly shows dozens of North Koreans lining up to collect military fatigues from Russian servicemen Russian aerial strikes wounded more than a dozen and knocked out electricity for tens of thousands of Ukrainians overnight in attacks on residential areas as temperatures dropped toward freezing, Kyiv said yesterday. Ukraine also said it had targeted a crucial Russian explosives factory, about 750km from the border, in an overnight drone attack, while Moscow said it had shot down 110 drones, the largest attempted aerial barrage by Kyiv in more than two weeks. At least 17 people were wounded in an attack on Kryvyi Rig, Ukraine, including a first responder, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service said. “At night, the enemy attacked Kryvyi
The space rock that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period caused a global calamity that doomed the dinosaurs and many other life forms, but that was far from the largest meteorite to strike our planet. One up to 200 times bigger landed 3.26 billion years ago, triggering worldwide destruction at an even greater scale, but as new research shows, that disaster actually might have been beneficial for the early evolution of life by serving as “a giant fertilizer bomb” for the bacteria and other single-celled organisms called archaea that held dominion at the