PUTRAJAYA, Dec 26 ― Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has been sentenced to imprisonment and a fine by the High Court today after he was found guilty of abuse of power and money laundering involving nearly RM2.2 billion in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) case.
Justice Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah, the Federal Court judge who previously presided over the 1MDB trial at the High Court, said he had taken into consideration all of the mitigation arguments submitted by the defence and the prosecution, including public interest and deterrence.
For each of the four power abuse charges, Sequerah sentenced Najib to 15 years’ imprisonment and imposed the minimum statutory fine of five times the gratification amount, totalling RM11,387,888,067.05.
But this does not mean that Najib will have to serve a total of 60 years in jail, as Sequerah said the jail sentences will run concurrently, or at the same time.
Should Najib fail to pay the fine, Sequerah also imposed an additional 10 years’ imprisonment in default for each power abuse charge.
In addition, Sequerah ordered that the jail term runs consecutively, to commence after Najib completes his ongoing sentence in the SRC case, involving the misappropriation of RM42 million from SRC International Sdn Bhd.
This means Najib will only begin serving the 15 years jail term from August 2028 the earliest or August 2029, depending on whether he pays the RM50 million fine imposed in the SRC case.
For the 21 money laundering charges, Sequerah sentenced Najib to five years’ imprisonment for each charge, to run concurrently. No fines were imposed.
Sequerah also ordered Najib to pay the recoverable sum of RM2,081,476,926 under Section 55(2) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act.
Should Najib fail to do so, he faces an additional jail term of two years and six months in default for each of the nine money laundering charges.
The sentencing, which began around 9.00am, concluded after nearly 12 hours of court proceedings that started at approximately 9.20am, with the court's findings taking about four and a half hours to be fully read out.
Despite the High Court’s decision, the ruling can still be appealed to the Court of Appeal and subsequently to the Federal Court.
As such, today’s ruling will likely not mark the end of the 1MDB case.
Najib, clad in a blue suit, appeared stoic yet defeated as the sentence was read out. Several members of his family were also present in court.
Najib’s lawyer, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, indicated to the court that they would appeal today’s decision.
Najib’s 25 charges
There are four abuse of power charges that Najib used his roles as prime minister, finance minister and chairman of 1MDB’s board of advisers to secure financial benefits totalling RM2.22 billion across four phases of the 1MDB scheme.
The four sums involved in the abuse of power charges are:
- RM60,629,839.43;
- RM90,899,927.28;
- RM2,081,476,926 (this RM2.08 billion is the money he is accused of laundering);
- RM44,570,920.70.
The remaining 21 charges all relate to alleged money laundering involving funds with illegal origins.
These funds were allegedly laundered through Najib’s personal AmIslamic bank account (Account 9694).
The breakdown of the 21 charges is as follows:
- Receiving US$681 million (RM2.08 billion) belonging to a 1MDB subsidiary, transferred from Tanore Finance Corporation’s account into Najib’s Account 9694 in nine transactions between March 22 and April 10, 2013.
- Issuing five cheques totalling RM22.649 million between August 2 and August 14, 2013 — namely RM20 million to Umno, RM100,000 to Umno Batu Kawan, and three cheques totalling RM2.549 million for speechwriting and social media management services.
- Transferring RM2.034 billion (US$620 million) in five transactions from Najib’s Account 9694 back to Tanore between August 2 and August 23, 2013.
- Transferring RM161.41 million in two transactions from Najib’s Account 9694 to his new personal AmIslamic bank account (Account 1880) on August 27 and August 30, 2013.
