Imprisoned former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been sentenced to a further 15 years in prison and fined 13.5 billion ringgit (approximately $2.8 billion) after being convicted in his largest corruption trial linked to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The verdict, delivered on Friday, December 26, 2025, marks another major milestone in one of the world’s most far-reaching financial scandals.
Malaysia’s High Court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving more than $700 million that prosecutors said was channelled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah imposed 15 years’ imprisonment for each abuse-of-power charge and five years for each money laundering offence. The sentences will run concurrently, meaning Najib faces an additional 15 years behind bars once his current sentence from an earlier 1MDB case concludes.
The court also imposed a fine of 13.5 billion ringgit. Should Najib fail to pay, he faces a further 10 years in prison. Najib’s legal team has indicated it will appeal the verdict.
Dressed in a blue suit, Najib appeared calm as the sentence was read out, though he later slumped back into his chair in the dock. His lawyer reiterated that Najib denies wrongdoing, maintaining that the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, widely believed to be the mastermind of the scandal.
Justice Sequerah rejected that defence in emphatic terms. He said Najib’s claim of a Saudi donation was “incapable of belief,” noting that four letters allegedly supporting the claim were forged and that evidence clearly showed the funds originated from 1MDB. The judge dismissed arguments that Najib was an unwitting victim, pointing instead to what he described as an “unmistakable bond” between Najib and Low, who operated as “the proxy, the conduit, the intermediary and the facilitator” in the diversion of funds.
The judge further noted that Najib failed to verify the source of the massive funds and took no action against Low despite the suspicious circumstances. Instead, Najib continued using the money and allegedly took steps to protect his position, including removing the attorney general and anti-corruption chief who were investigating the case. While most of the funds were later returned to an offshore account, the court ruled that the move appeared staged to conceal the illicit origin of the money.
“The accused was no country bumpkin,” Justice Sequerah said after spending nearly five hours reading the ruling. “Any attempt to paint the accused as an ignoramus who was hopelessly unaware of the misdeeds going around him must therefore fail miserably.”
Najib served as Malaysia’s prime minister from 2009 to 2018 and chaired 1MDB’s advisory board while also holding veto power as finance minister. The development fund was established shortly after he took office and was intended to spur national economic growth. Instead, investigators say it became the vehicle for one of the largest financial frauds in modern history.
Between 2009 and 2014, more than $4.5 billion was allegedly siphoned from 1MDB and laundered through financial systems in the United States, Singapore, Switzerland and other jurisdictions, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Authorities said the stolen funds were used to finance Hollywood films and fund extravagant purchases including luxury hotels, a superyacht, fine art and jewellery. Then–U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions famously described the scandal as “kleptocracy at its worst.” Wall Street institutions were also impacted, with Goldman Sachs paying billions in penalties for its role in raising funds for 1MDB.
Najib is already serving a 12-year prison sentence imposed in 2020 for abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving 42 million ringgit linked to SRC International, a former 1MDB unit. He began serving that sentence in August 2022 after losing his final appeal, becoming Malaysia’s first former leader to be imprisoned. In 2024, the country’s Pardons Board halved his sentence and reduced his fine.
Earlier this week, Najib failed in a bid to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest after Malaysia’s High Court ruled that a rare royal order permitting such an arrangement was constitutionally invalid. With the latest conviction, Najib now faces a significantly extended period of incarceration, pushing back his expected release date beyond the previously projected August 2028.
The scandal’s political consequences reshaped Malaysia’s landscape. Najib, the scion of a powerful political family, was once considered politically untouchable. Public anger over 1MDB led to the historic defeat of his long-ruling party in the 2018 general election, ending more than six decades of uninterrupted rule since independence from Britain.
The fallout has extended to Najib’s family as well. His wife, Rosmah Mansor, was sentenced in 2022 to 10 years in prison and fined heavily in a separate corruption case. She remains free on bail pending appeal.
As Najib prepares to challenge the latest ruling, the case continues to resonate globally as a cautionary tale of governance failures, financial crime, and the scale of cross-border money laundering. For Malaysia, the verdict reinforces a message that even the country’s most powerful political figures are not beyond the reach of the law — a signal closely watched by investors, regulators and the international community.
By FCCT Editorial Team
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