1MDB verdict: Court delivers five-hour long verdict to convict Najib

The Star

The High Court shot down Datuk Seri Najib Razak's defence of the Arab donation in the RM2.3bil 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) trial, calling it “not meritorious”.  Justice Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah, who delivered the verdict in his reading that lasted for five hours on Dec 26, said the four letters Najib claimed were from Saudi Arabia were forgeries, as the originals were never produced before the court.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/bdhd5azn  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00Justice Datuk Colin Lawrence Sequeira spent a total of five hours to read the High Court's

00:07verdict in the high-profile 1MDB tenor corruption trial involving former Prime Minister Datuk

00:14Seri Najib Razak on Friday.

00:16Sequeira found Najib guilty of all 25 charges, including four abuse of power charges and

00:2321 counts of money laundering involving 2.3 billion ringgit from 1MDB funds.

00:30Sequeira, in his broad grounds of judgment, said the defense had failed to raise a reasonable

00:35doubt in the prosecution's case.

00:38He said there was overwhelming cogent evidence, both direct and indirect, which led to the

00:43inevitable conclusion.

00:45The offenses took place at an Amislamic bank branch with the monies transferred between

00:49Najib's bank account, two companies and checks issued to an UMNO branch and an individual,

00:55as well as Tanore Finance Corporation, owned by Eric Tan, who was an associate of fugitive

01:00businessman Joe Lowe between February 2011 and December 2014.

01:07Sequeira called Najib's defense of the Arab donation not meritorious.

01:12He said the four letters Najib claimed were from Saudi Arabia were forgeries, as the originals

01:18were never produced before the court.

01:20Najib, in his defense, testified that during a 2010 meeting, the late Saudi ruler King Abdullah

01:28had pledged financial support to him, ranging from 50 million pound to 800 million U.S. dollars.

01:34Sequeira said the accused was consistent in his belief that he was receiving funds from

01:39Saudi Arabia, but no verification was conducted to confirm the source of the funds.

01:44He added that it defies reasonable belief that there was no proper and transparent accounting

01:49conducted, despite having a colossal amount of money remitted into Najib's bank account,

01:55in the name of a political donation.

01:58The seven-year trial involved 50 witnesses and nine days of oral submissions by the prosecution.

02:05Najib is presently incarcerated at Kajang Prison, where he is serving a reduced six-year jail sentence,

02:11for the misappropriation of 42 million Ringgit from the SRC international phase of the 1MDB scandal.

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