Najib Razak, the former prime minister of Malaysia, was released on bail on Wednesday ( October 23 ), and he offered a rare apology for handling the multibillion dollar 1MDB financial scandal, but maintained he had no knowledge of any illegal transfers from the now-defunct state fund.
A sovereign wealth fund co-founded by Najib in 2009 while he was in power has been the subject of bribery investigations in at least six nations as a result of the reported misuse of more than US$ 4.5 billion by senior bank officers and their affiliates.
In 2022, Malaysia’s highest court upheld Najib’s conviction for corruption and money laundering because he had received$ 10 million in illegally from the previous 1MDB system SRC International and received a 12-year prison sentence. A clemency table led by Malaysia’s former prince later reduced the word.
Najib, 71, has consistently denied crime, and his brother Mohamad Nizar Mohd Najib read a letter to a press conference on Wednesday that was read at a press conference.
According to the letter, the former prime minister wrote,” It discomfort me every day to know that the 1MDB crisis occurred while I was the minister of finance and excellent minister.”
” For that, I would like to apologise unreservedly to the Indonesian citizens”.
Najib claimed that while he started 1MDB’s investigations, he may have done it differently when inquiries first surfaced about its interactions. He added that his concerns at the time were 1MDB’s finances and the political risks that the scandal posed.
Anti-graft prosecutors from Malaysia have recently claimed that their inquiries into 1MDB during Najib’s administration had been stalled due to witnesses ‘ disappearances and death threats against them.