A Malaysian court on Friday sentenced former Prime Minister Najib Razak to 15 years in prison and ordered him to pay a hefty fine in a case related to the looting of the multibillion-dollar government fund 1MDB, a scandal that has already brought prison time for the disgraced leader.
The latest ruling involved the depositing of more than half a billion dollars into Mr. Najib’s personal bank account over a decade ago.
On Friday, the High Court of Malaysia found Mr. Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering. In addition to the prison term, he was fined 11.4 billion ringgit, or about $2.8 billion. Under Malaysian law, Mr. Najib faces additional jail time if he fails to pay the penalty.
The court also ordered that more than $500 million in assets be recovered from Mr. Najib.
Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said he had “considered the public interest element and the principle of deterrence, the length of his public service and other mitigating factors.”
Once the most powerful man in Malaysia, Mr. Najib displayed little emotion in the packed courtroom in Putrajaya, the administrative capital of the country. He wrote in a notebook intermittently as a judge read out the verdict over five hours.
“I will continue to assert my rights through lawful channels, with dignity and patience, even though the path is lonely and demands great sacrifice,” Mr. Najib said in a letter presented in court on Friday by his lawyer.
Mr. Najib once seemed untouchable from the fallout of the 1MDB scandal. But in 2018, voters delivered a commanding victory to the opposition in a general election. In the following years, Mr. Najib was found guilty of stealing millions of dollars from the fund and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
A key figure in the scandal, the financier Jho Low, remains in hiding.
Last year, Mr. Najib’s sentence was halved to six years and his fine reduced to a quarter of the original amount. He has won other reprieves, with prosecutors dropping charges in several cases linked to 1MDB. They also dropped an appeal in a case involving Mr. Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansoor, who had drawn comparisons to Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, for her lavish spending.
But Mr. Najib’s legal fortunes took a dramatic turn this week. On Monday, a court denied his bid to serve the remainder of his six-year term, which ends in August 2028, from home. Among the reasons, the court said Malaysian laws do not provide a mechanism for house arrest.
“Both rulings this week showed the consistency of Malaysia’s judiciary in dealing with high-profile corruption cases, underscoring its independence,” said Amir Fareed Rahim, the strategic director at KRA Group, a risk consultancy.
Still, Friday’s decision could unleash political instability in Malaysia. Mr. Najib’s political party, the United Malays National Organization, is a coalition partner in the current government, which is led by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. After Mr. Najib’s request for house arrest was rejected, some of his supporters urged his party to withdraw from the coalition after a lawmaker celebrated Mr. Najib’s setback on social media.
“The new verdict could translate into greater internal pressure on party leaders to reassess their cooperation with Mr. Anwar’s government ahead of the next general election,” said Mr. Amir Fareed.
Mr. Najib’s lawyer, who plans to appeal the ruling, said the money deposited into the former leader’s account were sent by the Saudi royal family. However, the judge concluded that donation letters were forged and that the money were derived from 1MDB funds.
“The accused is no country bumpkin but possessed of not only an impeccable family and a political pedigree, but of superior intelligence,” said Judge Sequerah, who presided over the seven-year trial.
He added: “Any attempt to paint the accused as an ignoramus or as hopelessly unaware of the misdeeds going around him must therefore fail miserably.”
Mr. Najib has faced a total of five criminal cases related to the 1MDB scandal.
“All Malaysians are very happy to see the end game of the 1MDB,” said James Chin, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia. “This means that Najib will be away for a long time and he will definitely miss the next two general elections.”
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