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Malaysia’s Najib Razak on Tuesday earned the dubious distinction of being the nation’s first former prime minister to be jailed, after the Federal Court dismissed his final appeal against his corruption conviction linked to a former unit of scandal-tainted state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
The ruling is a landmark moment in the years-long effort by anti-corruption activists to bring to justice those responsible for the plunder of 1MDB, which was founded and controlled by Najib during his tenure as prime minister from 2009 to 2018.
Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat said Najib’s lawyers had failed to prove that the findings of the lower courts were incorrect, nor were they “perverse or plainly wrong so as to warrant appellate intervention”.
“These appeals are therefore unanimously dismissed and the conviction and sentence are affirmed,” Tengku Maimun said when reading out the judgment on behalf of a five-judge panel.
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Najib in 2020 was sentenced to 12 years’ jail and fined 210 million ringgit (US$46.8 million), after the High Court found him guilty of seven counts of corruption and abuse of power linked to some 42 million ringgit that flowed from SRC International, a former 1MDB subsidiary, to his personal accounts.
The former leader’s failure to overturn this conviction also means he is disqualified from holding office as MP for Pekan in his home state of Pahang, and barred from contesting in an election.
Najib, who remained stoic as Tuesday’s judgment was read, was immediately surrounded by family members after the judges left the court. His wife Rosmah Mansor, as well as daughter Nooryana and sons Ashman and Nizar, were present in court.
Rosmah is scheduled to hear the verdict of her own corruption trial on September 1, linked to a 1.25-billion-ringgit solar energy project for rural schools in the state of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo.
Najib was transported to Kajang Prison – located 30km from Kuala Lumpur – in a police motorcade about an hour after the court delivered its ruling.
He faces four other cases linking him to the plundering of 1MDB, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. - scmp
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