In Malaysia, the court found former Prime Minister Najib Razak guilty of embezzling public funds in the amount of about $10 million.
Vice writes about it.
Malaysiaʼs highest court upheld the Supreme Courtʼs July 2020 verdict in which the former prime minister was found guilty of money laundering by 1MDB, the state investment fund that Razak created 14 years ago. In December 2021, the former head of government lost his bid for an adjournment at the Court of Appeal. On the evening of August 23, Razak was taken to Kajang Prison in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.
“We cannot conclude that any of the findings of the Supreme Court affirmed by the Court of Appeals were wrong so as to warrant appellate interference. We agree that the [arguments] of the defense are so inconsistent and implausible as to raise no reasonable doubt as to the prosecutionʼs case," the Federal Court panel stated in its ruling.
Najib Razak, who is now a Member of Parliament, in turn claimed that his trial was unfair.
"They say that the accused person is the most important person in a criminal court, but somehow I feel that he has been mistreated and I feel that I have not been given a fair trial," he told the court.
The U.S. Department of Justice received complaints that between 2009 and 2015, high-ranking Malaysian officials and their associates misappropriated funds totaling $4.5 billion that belonged to 1MDB. The investigation found that the money was spent on "extravagant items", including luxury properties in Beverly Hills, New York and London, a superyacht, paintings by Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol and various business investments, including renovations Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan.
Part of the money was used to finance the film "The Wolf of Wall Street" starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
The amount of money siphoned off from 1MDB was so large and the schemes so complex that US Attorney General Loretta Lynch once called it "the biggest kleptocracy case" her office had ever handled.
- In 2018, after nine years in power, Najib Razak lost his prime ministership due to the 1MDB scandal. It was the first time his United Malays National Organization party lost its majority.