Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak saw his sentence to twelve years in prison confirmed on appeal on Tuesday, August 23 for corruption in one of the aspects of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) case. This name is that of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund that he launched in 2009 and of which the equivalent of 4.5 billion dollars (3.8 billion euros at the time) were embezzled during his reign (2009- 2018) according to the American justice system, the first to take up the case in 2016, following suspicions of money laundering involving colossal sums.
Mr. Razak was reportedly taken to Kajang prison, located south of the capital, Kuala Lumpur. It is the first time a Malaysian Prime Minister has served time in prison – and the first incarceration in Malaysia in connection with the 1MDB case. His sentence of twelve years’ imprisonment and a fine of 210 million ringgits (47 million euros), imposed in 2020, sanctioned acts of abuse of trust and power as well as money laundering for having illegally collected the equivalent of ten million dollars from SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB.
At the time of his first indictment, in September 2018, his party, the National Organization of Malay Unity (UMNO), had just been defeated in the May elections, a historic first for this party, which dominated political life since independence in 1957. Searches of the residences of the former prime minister and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, revealed a dizzying accumulation of jewellery, handbags and precious objects , worth $273 million.
The police had filled five trucks with cash for 28.6 million dollars, and carried away 457 handbags, including the equivalent of 12 million euros of the Hermès brand. Hundreds of millions of dollars had also been invested in buildings in Manhattan, a Hollywood film and master paintings through an intermediary, the Chinese-Malaysian financier Jho Low, alleged mastermind of the large-scale siphoning off of the sovereign wealth fund. . Still wanted by the Malaysian courts, he resides in Macau, under Chinese protection.
“Intrinsically inconsistent defence”
Through this scandal, Malaysia also put a certain governance on trial. But UMNO returned to power in August 2021, without even going to the polls, after the scuttling of the coalition that had overthrown it. And Najib Razak, who remained popular with part of the Malaysian middle class for his pedigree – he is the son of Malaysia’s second prime minister, Abdul Razak – and a certain charisma, was in the midst of a political comeback. It was he, together with the president of UMNO, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, currently on trial for corruption in another trial, who pulled the strings of the party. He was clearly maneuvering to become Prime Minister again in the event of victory in the next legislative elections, expected by the fall.
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