(Bloomberg) -- Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s defense in his biggest trial yet over 1MDB was roundly criticized by the presiding judge, who dismissed suggestions Najib was unaware of any wrongdoing and directly connected him with Jho Low, the fugitive financier at the center of the scandal.
“The accused was no country bumpkin, but was possessed of not only an impeccable family and political pedigree, but of superior intelligence,” Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said in an almost three-hour High Court summation Friday. He said Najib used Low, who is now on the run, as a “proxy or agent” in the affairs of 1MDB.
No verdict has yet been given in the more than two dozen charges against the 72-year-old Najib, with the court breaking shortly after noon in Kuala Lumpur time and scheduled to resume after 3 p.m. Najib has consistently denied wrongdoing and can appeal any guilty verdict.
The judge said prosecution witnesses were credible, also rejecting Najib’s “Arab donation” defense regarding millions of dollars placed in his bank account, purportedly by the Saudi royal family. The “cold hard facts” show Low’s presence and involvement in critical phases of 1MDB transactions and an “obvious proximity and relationship” with Najib, the judge said.
“The attempt by the accused to distance himself from Jho Low rang hollow in the light of the overwhelming evidence of these prosecution witnesses,” Sequerah said in the High Court. Suggestions that officials below Najib “knowingly conspired” against the then-prime minister would “stretch the imagination into the realms of pure fantasy.”
The judge also dismissed defense claims that Najib was misled and duped by Low.
Najib is already serving time for crimes related to the collapse of 1MDB and on Monday lost a bid to serve the rest of his current six-year sentence at home. Friday’s ruling relates to 2018 charges against Najib in which he was accused of four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving roughly 2.2 billion ringgit ($544 million) tied to 1MDB.
The state fund was set up during his premiership before collapsing in the sprawling, multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, which has stretched from Singapore to Switzerland. Those ensnared in the affair included a Grammy-winning rapper and a high-profile banker, with global investigations revealing salacious details of Hollywood deals and parties with actor Leonardo DiCaprio. About $4.5 billion was allegedly lost in the scandal, which led to multiple probes across continents.
An adverse ruling would diminish the chances of a political comeback for Najib, although he retains significant influence in the United Malays National Organisation, which has campaigned for his release. UMNO’s secretary-general this week said it may be time to review its support for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government after the biggest member of the coalition, the Democratic Action Party, crowed over Najib’s recent legal loss.
Najib, whose father was Malaysia’s second prime minister, lost power in 2018 and has been in jail since 2022 for criminal breach of trust and abuse of power in connection with 1MDB. He had his original sentence halved to six years in early 2024 following royal intervention, and is due to be released in 2028.
--With assistance from Joy Lee and Adrian Kennedy.
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