On Dec. 26, 2025, Malaysia's former prime minister Najib Razak was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay 13.5 billion ringgit, or about $3.3 billion, after a court convicted him again in a major case tied to the 1MDB scandal.
The High Court found Najib guilty of four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving more than $700 million that prosecutors said was channeled into his personal accounts from the state investment fund. Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah said the prison terms for the abuse-of-power counts would run concurrently, meaning Najib faces another 15 years beyond his current sentence. The judge also imposed a 11.4 billion ringgit fine on the abuse counts and ordered another 2.08 billion ringgit in assets to be recovered under money-laundering laws. If Najib does not pay, he could serve more prison time.
The ruling adds a new chapter to one of the world's most consequential financial scandals. Najib denied wrongdoing and argued that the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia, but the judge rejected that explanation as unbelievable and said the documents supporting it were forged. Sequerah said the evidence showed the money came from 1MDB and that Najib had an unmistakable bond with Low Taek Jho, the financier widely seen as the scandal's mastermind. The court said Najib did not take steps to verify the source of the funds and instead used them while trying to protect his position.
Najib is already serving time in prison after an earlier 1MDB-linked conviction. He was sentenced in 2020 to 12 years for abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving 42 million ringgit from SRC International, a former 1MDB unit. He began that sentence in August 2022 after losing his final appeal, becoming Malaysia's first former leader to be jailed. A pardons board later halved that sentence and reduced his fine in 2024. His latest term will begin only after the earlier sentence ends.
The latest judgment also came after Najib failed in an attempt this week to secure house arrest under a rare royal order. The High Court ruled that the order had not been issued in line with constitutional requirements. Najib's legal team said it would appeal both the sentence and the verdict.
The scale of the case still dwarfs any single courtroom moment. The 1MDB scandal touched Wall Street, triggered investigations in the United States and other countries, and fed public anger that helped bring down Najib's ruling party in 2018. With this conviction, Malaysia's most famous corruption case remains open in both legal and political memory.
