Malaysia where the top court has upheld a guilty verdict and jail sentence against former Prime Minister Najib Razak. Najib appealed a 2020 conviction for money laundering and corruption and a 12-year prison term prosecutors have said four and a half billion dollars was stolen from the 1 MDB fund which he co-founded.
The court charged najib for illegally receiving 10 million dollars from that fund he's been on bail since 2018 pending that appeal for more on this story.
what happened at court today?
Well it's been a day of high drama at court the hearing was originally scheduled to go until the end of the week. Now instead we heard najib's lawyers attempt to well file an application asking the chief justice to recuse herself saying that she was biased that application was heard and dismissed.
Najib's lawyers also sought to have the hearing postponed that postponement was rejected and ultimately we heard Najib speak from the dock itself where he again attempted to portray himself as a victim of justice, he sought to paint the high court judge who hurt the initial case as biased.
He said the chief justice who's hearing this final appeal is could also be biased because on the basis that her husband had posted critical views of Najib on social media several years ago but ultimately the five-member panel of the federal court dismissed those arguments and the you know the court said that their findings based on what they read from.
what the high court said and also based on the submissions at the court of appeal and the written submissions that was filed at the federal court? Their findings were that there was nothing wrong with the initial decision made by the high court that would warrant this final court to intervene and therefore they upheld his guilty conviction and it also means that his sentence of 12 years and a fine of the approximate value of 45 million dollars is upheld.
what's next is he headed to jail that means he will go to prison the judge said there will be no stay of the sentence now we are still waiting to see what we're still waiting for najib razak to emerge from court as far as i know after the court was adjourned he was seen in the dock talk speaking to members of his family his son was there his wife.
Well now he will be headed to prison and it's very likely that it will happen today now he will be the first former prime minister of malaysia to be imprisoned.
Now there were concerns because no that is the party to which Najib belongs and this is the dominant political party in malaysia because this party is now back in power there were concerns that there could be interference in the judiciary and in these proceedings there were concerns that justice may not be served because we've also seen in the last few years that corruption cases involving politicians faded away because the attorney general had decided not to pursue the cases so there were concerns that this could happen.
Now this judgment now will allay those fears and another thing is because Najib has long sought to portray himself as a victim of political persecution that argument will hold less water because this judgment is take this judgment has been delivered with his party still in power so it's going to become a lot more difficult for him to argue that he is a victim of political persecution and this is important because remember there are also several other cases involving one MDB that are still ongoing against him this particular case involves a former subsidiary of one MDB and it's long been regarded as one of the less complex cases in that whole corruption saga.