In this file photo taken on July 28, 2020, Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak waves as he leaves the Duta Court complex after he was found guilty in his corruption trial in Kuala Lumpur. – Malaysia’s highest court on August 23, 2022 upheld former prime minister Najib Razak’s 12-year jail sentence for corruption in the 1MDB financial scandal, a decision analysts said could slam the door to a political comeback.
“We find the appeal devoid of any merits. We find the conviction and sentence to be safe,” Chief Justice Maimun Tuan Mat said on behalf of a five-judge panel. Maimun said “it would have been a travesty of justice of the highest order if any reasonable tribunal, faced with such evidence staring it in the face, were to find that the appellant is not guilty of the seven charges preferred against him”.
Najib is a UK-educated son of one of Malaysia’s founding fathers who had been groomed for the prime minister’s post from a young age.