Malaysia's top court ordered former Prime Minister, Najib Razak to begin his final appeal in two days on Tuesday(15/8/2022) after rejecting his request that it throw out his graft conviction and 12 year sentence over alleged judicial bias. Najib has sought to introduce new evidence that would spark a retrial on grounds that the high court judge who convicted him may be biased due to his previous job at a bank that provided financial services to the One Malaysia Development Berhad State Fund.
One MDBS was a development fund Najib set up shortly after taking power in 2009. Investigators allege at least 4 point USD5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates. Najib was found guilty of abuse of power criminal breach of trust and money laundering for illegally receiving 9 point USD4 million from SRC International a former unit of One MDB. The five member federal court bench unanimously dismissed Najib's request agreeing with prosecutors that the background of then high court judge, Mohamad Nazlan, Mohamad ghazali was public knowledge.
