Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Malaysian politician Mahathir Mohamad, who has been in politics for a long time, said on Thursday that d...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Malaysian politician Mahathir Mohamad, who has been in politics for a long time, said on Thursday that disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak, whose downfall he helped bring about, was likely to get a royal pardon and get out of a 12-year jail sentence for corruption that he started this week.
Mahathir's historic election win in 2018 led to Najib's downfall. He said that delays in trials related to the multibillion-dollar corruption scandal at the state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) would mean that justice would not be done.
Najib was found guilty the first time in 2020, but he took the case to a higher court. On Tuesday, the country's highest court turned down his last appeal and upheld his 12-year jail sentence and 210 million ringgit ($46.88 million) fine for illegally getting $10 million from a unit of 1MDB.
In a statement, the 97-year-old man said, "For Najib, it is very likely that he will be freed from jail."
He did not elaborate.
King Al-Sultan Abdullah's palace did not respond right away to a request for comment on Mahathir's comment, even though Najib supporters had asked for a pardon the day before.
Some of Malaysia's royals think that Najib is close to them. In May, Najib posted on social media that he and the king went to Eid celebrations together.
But the palace hasn't said anything yet about how it would handle a pardon request from Najib, who was in charge for nine years until 2018.
There is also no sign of how Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob would feel about a pardon for his old party leader. He is trying to improve the image of the United Malays National Organisation, which is in power (UMNO).
Najib went to jail on Tuesday after losing his last appeal in one of the smaller cases about the theft of money from the state fund he helped start in 2009. On Thursday, he was back in court for a hearing in the biggest case.
He was taken from the Kajang prison complex southeast of the capital to the Kuala Lumpur high court in a black police car. He was taken through a private entrance to the courtroom.
As the hearing began, Najib was sitting in the dock. He was wearing a dark suit and tie.
In this case, he is being charged with 21 counts of money laundering and 4 counts of abusing his power because he is said to have received at least $512.93 million in illegal transfers between 2011 and 2014.
Najib is also facing three other cases, all of which could land him in jail and cost him a lot of money.
Investigators from Malaysia and the United States say that $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB. This is part of a scandal that involves banks and high-ranking officials all over the world. It was found that Najib's bank accounts held more than $1 billion.
The former prime minister is also in danger of going bankrupt, which cannot be forgiven and would keep him from running for office.
Najib has denied doing anything wrong and said that his former mentor is out to get him because of politics.
Mahathir had been Malaysia's prime minister for 22 years when he stepped down for the first time in 2003. During the 2013 election, he campaigned for Najib and UMNO, but he turned against his former student when it became clear how bad the corruption at 1MDB was.
The UMNO-led coalition was defeated by a group of unlikely opponents led by Mahathir. This was the first time the coalition had been out of power since Malaysia was founded 60 years earlier.
When Mahathir was put back in charge as prime minister, he reopened the investigations into 1MDB, which led to Najib being charged with 42 crimes. In the end, Mahathir quit because his alliance fell apart and caused trouble in politics.
($1 = 4.4800 ringgit)
