Malaysia second country to jail those involved in 1MDB, says US journalist

 

With Najib Razak’s jailing, former journalist and author Tom Wright hopes other countries like the US and Switzerland will sanction those involved in the 1MDB scandal.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has become the second country after Singapore to jail those involved in the 1MDB scandal, according to Tom Wright, the author of the Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World.

Wright made the statement in a Twitter thread following news that the Federal Court had affirmed former prime minister Najib Razak’s conviction and sentence in the SRC International case.

With the decision, Najib has become the first former prime minister in the country to be jailed.

The Billion Dollar Whale book, which Wright co-wrote with Bradley Hope, chronicles the 1MDB corruption scandal, which also involves fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, as the alleged mastermind.

Both Wright and Hope were reporters in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) who reported in 2015 on RM2.6 billion allegedly channelled into Najib’s bank account from the 1MDB funds.

In the Twitter thread, Wright said he hoped other countries, like the US and Switzerland, would sanction the individuals who “allowed this to happen”, which is a reference to their involvement in the 1MDB scandal.

He also shared a quote from Billion Dollar Whale, which stated: “It’s easy to sneer at Malaysia as a cesspool of graft, but that misses the point. None of this could have happened without the connivance of scores of senior executives in London, Geneva, New York, Los Angeles, Singapore, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere.”

In 2017, Singapore sentenced former BSI Singapore wealth planner Yeo Jiawei to 54 months’ jail for money laundering and cheating in relation to the 1MDB scandal.

Najib, who is the former Pekan MP, will begin serving his jail term immediately.

He appealed his conviction by High Court judge Nazlan Ghazali on all seven charges of abuse of power, misappropriation and money laundering involving RM42 million in funds belonging to SRC International, for which he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and fined RM210 million two years ago.

He then appealed the conviction to the appellate court, which upheld the High Court’s decision in December last year. - FMT