KUALA LUMPUR (June 16): The judgement in the criminal trial against former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) case is finally out, with the trial judge describing the plunder of 1MDB funds as making Attila the Hun look like a choirboy.
Federal Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah, sitting as the trial High Court judge, described this in the much-awaited judgement, in what he noted the world and press described the financial scandal as being the “largest episode of kleptocracy in the world”.
“The scale of the plunder that took place (financially speaking, of course) made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy in comparison,” Sequerah wrote.
Attila was the ruler of the Huns in Central Asia, who has been described as a barbarian who conquered and pillaged Roman cities and empires in his path during his reign between 434 to 453 CE.
In his 810-page judgement, Sequerah also described the challenges in concluding the trial, which had run a period of six years, and heard the testimony of 50 prosecution witnesses and 26 defence witnesses, including that of the former prime minister himself.
Sequearah said that despite Najib having been charged in 2018 and the case having been transferred to the KL High Court on Oct 31, 2018, the trial only commenced on Aug 19, 2019, to make way for the SRC International Sdn Bhd case.
“After what seemed like an eternity, the trial finally commenced on Aug 19, 2019. After the trial progressed a while, and hope appeared to spring eternal, the nation and indeed the whole globe were plunged into the abyss of the Covid-19 pandemic and the movement control order.
“This resulted in this court having to place the trial on hold from March 19, 2020. As a result of the lockdown, a total of 19 days of trial was lost, while another nine dates were lost due to someone or other involved in the proceedings testing positive for Covid-19 or someone coming into close contact with a person who had tested positive for Covid-19,” the judge said.
Sequerah said that when the trial finally resumed, the progress of the trial did not run smoothly, causing the trial to be so prolonged that all other criminal trials before this pale in comparison.
“A total of 50 prosecution witnesses and 26 witnesses for the defence were called. The trial took a total of approximately six years to conclude. It has, in all probability, surpassed the length of any other trial in the annals of Malaysian history — an unenviable record,” the top judge said.
In the end, he said, the court found Najib guilty on all four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering to the sum of RM2.27 billion, the grounds of which are listed in the 810-page written judgement.
Najib was then sentenced to 15 years' jail and RM11.38 billion fine on Dec 26, 2025, which the politician is appealing at the Court of Appeal.
At the moment, the former Pekan member of Parliament and former Umno president is serving time in prison for his conviction on three counts of criminal breach of trust, one abuse of power, and three money laundering charges involving SRC funds.
Read judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah's written judgement here.