Bangkok, Dec 9, (dpa/GNA) – Former Malaysian premier, Najib Razak, has appealed to the country’s Federal Court after the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, threw out his attempt to overturn his conviction from last year for corruption while in office.
Maintaining his innocence, Najib told local media on Thursday that he had formally lodged the appeal, and posted to his 4.6 million Facebook followers that he believes “justice will be done.”
Last year, the High Court found Najib guilty of misappropriating 42 million ringgit (9.6 million dollars) from a subsidiary of 1MDB, a state fund he established while in government.
Najib, 68, claimed he was unaware that the money had been transferred to his bank accounts and said he had been scammed.
However the Court of Appeal on Thursday said Najib “cannot plead ignorance of the transactions in his bank accounts to avoid criminal liability.”
Publishing a 317-page full judgment of its dismissal of Najib’s appeal the day before, the court said “the customer of a bank is required by law to have knowledge of the banking activities in his account.”
Najib, who was prime minister from 2009-18 and remains a member of parliament, faces 12 years in jail if the next appeal fails. He is also standing trial in four related cases which include charges of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from 1MDB.
The US Justice Department estimates that 4.5 billion dollars could have been looted from the fund. The US government has repatriated 1.2 billion dollars to Malaysia after seizing assets believed to represent laundered 1MDB money.
GNA