Malaysia postpones former PM’s 1MDB trial

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. (Photo: The Star)

Kuala Lumpur (VNA) - The High Court of Malaysia has agreed to postpone Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund (1MDB) trial as the former Prime Minister is currently under 14-day home quarantine following his return from Sabah, the state with the highest COVID-19 tally in the country, on September 27.

The trial was previously scheduled to resume on October 5 and last until October 8.

However, High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah on October 5 morning decided to allow the request by Najib’s lawyers to have their client’s trial deferred.

Najib Razak is facing four charges of power abuse from which he reportedly earned 2.28 billion RM (nearly 5.5 billion USD) while serving as Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and chairman of the 1MDB advisory board. He is also facing 21 money-laundering charges involving 4.3 billion RM.

If found guilty, he may carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

The 1MDB was formed by Najib Razak in 2009, supposedly to serve Malaysia’s development through global partnerships and foreign direct investment.

This fund was the centre of the scandalous loss of 3.7 billion USD believed to be corrupt money transferred to other countries for laundering, leading to a series of investigations in Malaysia and some countries like the US, Switzerland and Singapore. The scandal is also one of the causes of Najib Razak’s failure in the 2018 election.

In late July, Kuala Lumpur’s High Court sentenced Najib Razak to 12 years in prison and fined him 210 million RM for power abuse linked with the 1MDB./.