Najib Razak, former prime minister of Malaysia, has arrived in the High Court for addressing his first day of long-awaited hearings over the charged linked to a multi-billion-dollar graft scandal at 1MDB fund – the state fund set up by Najib.
Voters had rejected Najib in an election in last year’s May, amid widespread speculations over allegations that around $4.5 billion has been stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state fund set up by Najib.
The opening of his one of the five trials on Wednesday has been earlier postponed many times in order to permit time for hearing a separate trial that involved the ex-IMDB unit SRC International, according to Al-Jazeera.
Najib’s lawyers sought to postpone the IMDB trial to provide time for concluding the SRC trial at the Malaysian High Court.
The United States and Malaysian investigators believe $4.5 billion has been misappropriated from 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) by associates and top-level officials of the said fund between 2009 and 2014.
However, many of those assets, sought by the investigators, may have since hiked in value, as well as, including those linked to 1MDB’s ex-subsidiary SRC International Azam Baki, according to a Malaysian anti-corruption commission’s (MACC) deputy commissioner.
Najib has been charged over a total of 42 criminal charges of money laundering and corruption at 1IMDB, as well as, other state-funded firms where he pleaded not guilty of all charges.
In today’s trial of highly anticipated, the former prime minister faces four charges related to the use of position to obtain illegal money from 1IMDB state fund totalling USD 550 million and 21 charges of money laundering, including the same funds.