article main image
Najib's First 1MDB Trial Starts Today in Key Test for MalaysiaBy Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The first of many trials for Malaysia’s former premier Najib Razak will serve as a key test of the nation’s readiness to get to the bottom of the 1MDB scandal.

Najib is set to appear in court on Wednesday to face seven of 42 corruption and money-laundering charges linked to his role in 1MDB, the state fund at the center of a global heist that allegedly saw $4.5 billion embezzled. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Recouping the lost funds and bringing those responsible to justice were at the top of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s list of promises when he assumed office last May. Malaysian prosecutors have since slapped dozens of charges on former 1MDB officers, fugitive financier Low Taek Jho and units of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. But nearly a year later, only Najib is ready to proceed to trial.

The seven charges to be adjudicated on Wednesday refer to 42 million ringgit ($10.3 million) of funds that Najib allegedly received in his personal accounts from SRC International Sdn, a former unit of 1MDB. The relevant fund transfers were done onshore, making it simpler for Malaysian investigators to trace compared with the globe-spanning transactions that led to the other charges.

The proceedings have been beset by troubles, including multiple delays, suspects who remain at large and issues with serving charges against Goldman’s units.

Lengthy Delays

The complications may worsen as authorities bring to court the remaining 1MDB cases, which involve an ever more complex group of transactions spanning multiple legal jurisdictions from Singapore to Switzerland. Malaysia’s police have yet to track down suspects who were charged in their absence, including Jho Low, the businessman that the U.S. painted as the mastermind of the scandal.

Prosecutors has yet to serve summons against two of the three Goldman Sachs units it charged in December. The New York-based bank is accused of misleading investors when it helped 1MDB raise $6.5 billion through bond sales, while allegedly knowing that the funds would be misappropriated. Only the U.S. firm’s Singapore unit was a respondent at a hearing in Kuala Lumpur last month, prompting the court to set a new pretrial hearing in June. Goldman says it will vigorously defend against the charges.

Najib’s lawyers have managed to secure delays to the trial, which was scheduled within 90 days of the charges being served in July. Initially set to kick off on February 12, it was stalled due to an appeal his legal team filed over procedural issues. That appeal was eventually dismissed, but not without further delays caused by, among other things, a pet dog injuring his lawyer’s wrist.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anisah Shukry in Kuala Lumpur at ashukry2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Yudith Ho at yho35@bloomberg.net;Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.