this is how the former malaysian prime minister fell

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EST


Up to 300 boxes with Hermes or Louis Vuitton bags were found in his house during the police inspection

For years, former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife led a high-flying life paid for by money embezzled from a state development fund, known as “the blow of the century”. Now in prison, Najib clings to one last chance to return to politics: a royal pardon, which is not ruled out.

Najib, who ruled Malaysia between 2009 and 2018, He has known public life for decades, having taken the political witness from his father, the second prime minister of the Asian country, Abdul Razak Hussein, upon his death in 1976.

But his knowledge of diplomacy and contacts among the Malaysian high spheres have not prevented, to the surprise of many, that their excesses have received punishment: Last August 23, the Malaysian Federal Court upheld a twelve-year prison sentence for corruption.

The 69-year-old former president, who pleads not guilty, was found guilty of misappropriation of 42 million ringgit ($9.42 million) from the state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), devised by him to develop Malaysia, and became the country’s first former leader to go to prison.

Accustomed to rubbing elbows with renowned bankers and world leaders -he maintained a photographed friendship with former President Donald Trump-, Najib exchanged luxury for the austerity of the cella fate that in principle also awaits his wife, Rosmah Mansor, sentenced to 10 years in prison this month, a sentence that has appealed.

The Malaysian Frames

The term luxury may not be enough to illustrate the life of the couple until their defenestration, which occurred after a journalistic investigation that uncovered the scandal in 2015: with the fund’s money under their control, the couple governed a kleptocracy in the purest style of the Marcos (1965-1986) in the Philippines.

In 2018, shortly after Najib lost the elections to his former patron, the ninety-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, who used the corruption of the 1MDB to beat his former pupil at the polls, Police seized a dazzling loot after searching the couple’s home.

Up to 300 boxes with Hermes bags or Louis Vuitton, dozens of suitcases with cash in various currencies, 423 watches, 14 tiaras and other valuables left the presidential home, recalling the 3,000 pairs of shoes found in the home of Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

According to several judicial investigations of a scandal with ramifications in Hollywood and Wall Street -due to the contacts of Najib and his partner, Jho Low, now a fugitive from Justice-, up to 4,500 million dollars were embezzled681 of them deposited in accounts of the former leader, who faces four other trials.

Links with Hollywood and Saudi Arabia

The case, leaked by former Swiss-Spanish banker Xavier Justo, is peppered with lurid details -mysterious murders of possible informers, links with Saudi Arabia and extravagant gifts with money from the fund to the actor Leonardo DiCaprio or the model Miranda Kerr-, became known as “the hit of the century.”

Which does not seem to prevent Najib from having the doors completely closed to an eventual return. Despite embezzling money intended to industrialize a still-developing country, the former leader trusts his circle to get him out of prisonand in early September he requested a royal pardon.

“I think there’s a chance he’ll get clemencybut later, it may depend on the outcome of the next elections,” Cassey Lee, a Malaysian analyst at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, told Efe.

Malaysia’s rotating monarchy has often played a residual role in national politics, although the king, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, has had more influence in the turbulent years after Mahathir’s resignation, and it was he who appointed Ismail Sabri prime ministerreturning Najib’s (UMNO) party to power.

For some analysts, the king’s decision will depend a lot on how much Ismail Sabri persuades him and on if the electionswhich must be held before September 2023 and could happen in the coming monthsreinforce UMNOwhere Najib continues to have strong allies.

The king, however, wanted to emphasize his neutrality, and, as a defender of Islam in the country -Malaysia’s majority religion-, he stated after Najib asked for a pardon that Islamic justice “does not grant any privilege or exception to anyone who commits an infraction”.

“Najib still has public support, but it will wane as he is in prison, and his influence in some circles will also give way then”Lee points out to Efe.

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