Friday 24 June 2022

Najib guns for judge who convicted him

Graft probe into judge who convicted former Malaysian premier called intimidation campaign against judiciary

Malaysia’s highest court will soon reach its final and incontestable conclusion on whether to uphold former prime minister Najib Razak’s landmark corruption conviction, a ruling that will leave the influential ex-leader either firmly emboldened as he mounts a political comeback or forced to adjust to life in a jail cell.

Lawyers for the 68-year-old politician recently filed a last-ditch bid to nullify his conviction and 12-year prison sentence handed down in July 2020 over the misappropriation of 42 million ringgit (US$9.5 million) from SRC International, a now-defunct investment vehicle of the infamous 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.

Najib’s legal team contends that the judge who handed down the historic ruling, Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, should be disqualified for a purported conflict of interest due to his previous stint as the general counsel of Maybank Group, a commercial lender to 1MDB that had played an advisory role in the establishment of SRC International.

A probe into the same sitting judge by the government’s anti-graft agency in response to unsubstantiated claims leveled by a fugitive blogger that Nazlan had pocketed stolen 1MDB funds has, meanwhile, shaken Malaysia’s legal fraternity and prompted the country’s chief justice to push back against “scurrilous attacks” leveled against the judiciary.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.