World

Malaysia’s highest court Tuesday upheld former prime minister Najib Razak’s 12-year jail sentence for corruption in the 1MDB financial scandal, a decision analysts said could slam the door to a political comeback.

Najib’s daughter-in-law Nur Sharmila Shaheen said the family was told he was sent to Kajang Prison, located south of the capital Kuala Lumpur.

“My father-in-law asked us to take care of the family. He remained strong and calm,” she said.

Federal Court chief justice Maimun Tuan Mat, speaking on behalf of a five-judge panel, said the tribunal found Najib’s “complaints as contained in the petition of appeal devoid of any merit”.

“On the totality of the evidence, we find the conviction of the appellant on all seven charges safe. We also find that the sentence imposed is not manifestly excessive,” she added.

The appeals are “unanimously dismissed and the conviction and sentence are affirmed”, Maimun said.

The 69-year-old former prime minister looked somber and dejected, seated by his wife Rosmah and two children as the verdict was read.

Journalists who were in an adjacent room watching the proceedings through video link saw Najib surrounded by family members, friends and party mates before the connection was cut off.

Outside the court, teary-eyed family members and supporters hugged each other.

Earlier in the day when Najib arrived in court, around 300 supporters mobbed his car chanting “bossku” — “my boss” in Malay — a rallying cry among his defenders.

Just before the verdict was read, Najib, who had said he received an unfair trial, made an impassioned plea asking for a two-month adjournment so he can adequately prepare for a defence.

During a break in the proceedings, he spoke to supporters, telling them “if I am guilty, please forgive me”.

– Barred from elections –

Najib is the UK-educated son of one of Malaysia’s founding fathers who had been groomed for the prime minister’s post from a young age.

The final ruling on the jail sentence also came four years after his long-ruling party’s shock election defeat in 2018, during which allegations he and his friends embezzled billions of dollars from state fund 1MDB were key campaign issues.

A lower court in July 2020 found Najib guilty of abuse of power, money laundering and criminal breach of trust over the transfer of 42 million ringgit ($10 million) from SRC International, a former unit of state fund 1MDB, to his personal bank account.

An appellate court in December denied his appeal, prompting him to go to the Federal Court for a final recourse.

Some analysts said the decision will likely derail any plans by Najib for a political comeback.

“Under Malaysian law, Najib cannot stand for this election and the next election (if found guilty),” James Chin, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania, told AFP before the verdict was announced.

“Obviously, his political career is gone.” 

There has been speculation that polls may be held this year, though elections are not due until September 2023.

But Oh Ei Sun, principal adviser for think-tank Pacific Research Center of Malaysia, said one way out for Najib is to get the king’s pardon.

“He could still apply for clemency (from the king),” he told AFP. “And if pardoned, as many expect, he could easily mount a comeback as his feudalistically minded supporters are numerous in number.”

Oh said, however, that the current Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob — who belongs to the same United Malays National Organisation party — must recommend a pardon.

Najib and his ruling party were voted out in 2018 following allegations of their involvement in a multibillion-dollar financial scandal at 1MDB.

He and his associates were accused of stealing billions of dollars from the country’s investment vehicle and spending it on everything from high-end real estate to pricey art.

US new home sales fell sharply in July to their lowest rate since early 2016, the government reported Tuesday, as rising lending rates cool demand.

Americans reduced their new home purchases by 12.6 percent compared to June, to an annual rate of 511,000, seasonally adjusted, continuing a downward trend, the Commerce Department reported.

The results were far weaker than the consensus among economists, who expected to see a much smaller decline. 

After low borrowing costs spurred a boom in homebuying during the pandemic, the sales pace has fallen 29.6 percent from July 2021, the data showed.

“July’s drop continues the steep downtrend in sales since the start of the year,” said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics, noting that “new home sales have fallen below pre-pandemic levels.”

Sales last month declined throughout the country by double digits, except in the Northeast.

Mortgage rates have been climbing sharply in recent months as the Federal Reserve cranks up interest rates in its battle against surging inflation.

Central bankers hope the aggressive moves will cool overheated demand throughout the economy, including the housing market, where builders have struggled to keep up amid supply snarls and a labor shortage.

Those factors have contributed to a steady climb in home prices, and the median cost of a new home rose to $439,400 from $414,900 in June.

However, the sales data can be volatile.

“These data are wild month-to-month,” Shepherdson said.

“It’s reasonable to assume that the steepest declines in sales are behind us, though they likely will fall a bit further.”

A new gas discovery off Cyprus could speed up exploitation of untapped resources and help secure supplies to Europe, Cypriot Energy Minister Natasa Pilides said Tuesday.

Italian giant Eni and France’s TotalEnergies announced on Monday a “significant gas discovery at the Cronos-1 well, in Block 6, offshore Cyprus”.

Cyprus’s energy ministry said preliminary estimates indicated the reservoir holds about 2.5 trillion cubic feet (70 billion cubic metres) of natural gas.

With Russia threatening to cut off gas supplies to the European Union, Nicosia was in talks with Brussels to become part of the bloc’s energy plan to reduce reliance on Moscow, Pilides told state radio.

The minister said she had contacted Eni and TotalEnergies to “find ways to optimally exploit this discovery”.

The gas find was located 165 kilometres (about 100 miles) off the southwest coast of Cyprus.

In 2018, Eni discovered the large Calypso-1 gas field in the same block, containing an estimated 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The Cypriot energy ministry said Monday more drilling had begun in a new well called Zeus-1 in Block 6, where additional quantities of gas could be discovered.

Nicosia has granted drilling licences for seven blocks to the Eni-Total consortium.

The latest discovery adds to three other major gas finds, including at the Aphrodite well in Block 12 of 4.5 trillion cubic feet, licensed to US firm Chevron, Britain’s Shell, as well as Israeli partners.

Pilides estimated it would take about three years to commercially exploit Aphrodite, with the gas likely to be exported to nearby Egypt.

In December, US giant ExxonMobil and Qatar Energy signed a contract for oil and gas exploration and production-sharing off Cyprus, angering Turkey.

Gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean has been a sore spot for the two nations due to competing claims over rights to maritime zones.

In February 2019, ExxonMobil and Qatar Energy discovered a huge natural gas reserve off Cyprus in Block 10, the island’s largest find to date with an estimated five to eight trillion cubic feet.

The son of one of Malaysia’s founding fathers, Najib Razak was groomed for the prime minister’s post from a young age.

But after running the country for nine years he now faces more than a decade in jail for corruption in a spectacular fall over his links to the misuse of billions in public money.

Malaysia’s highest court on Tuesday upheld Najib’s 12-year jail sentence over the theft of cash from state fund 1MDB, slamming shut the door on any further political ambitions the former leader may have held.

Since his shock election defeat in May 2018, Najib has faced a tightening noose as successive governments ramped up investigations into the allegations of graft that have hung over him and wife Rosmah Mansor.

Later that year Najib was found guilty of abuse of power, money laundering and criminal breach of trust over the 1MDB scandal.

The convictions relate to his role in diverting 42 million ringgit (about $10 million) from SRC International, a unit of 1MDB, into his personal bank accounts. 

Najib’s downfall is a far cry from 2009 when he first took office offering hope for many in Malaysia longing for an end to the repressive tactics deployed by a once-invincible coalition that ruled for six decades.

He initially espoused liberal political views and replaced security laws widely criticised as stifling dissent. 

But the British-educated Najib was seen by many Malaysians as an aloof elitist with little understanding of common people. 

That perception was accentuated by frequent tone-deaf gaffes as well as policies unpopular with the poor, such as a sales tax introduced in 2015 that is now set to be scrapped.

His wife Rosmah was also a constant lightning rod for critics due to her imperious manner and elaborately coiffed hair, which she once complained cost her 1,200 ringgit ($270) to style. Malaysia’s minimum monthly wage at the time was 900 ringgit.

– ‘Cash is king’ –

Then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has said Najib told him in 2015 that “cash is king” in maintaining political support in Malaysia, a phrase that opponents turned against Najib as a sign of his hubris and corruption.

Money and power appeared to act as a firewall protecting Najib through a scandal involving Malaysia’s 2002 purchase of French submarines while he was defence minister, a deal brokered by a close associate.

Allegations later emerged of huge kickbacks to Malaysian officials to secure the deal, and the murky episode was punctuated by the murder of a Mongolian woman involved in the negotiations.

Altantuya Shaariibuu was shot dead and her body blown up near Kuala Lumpur using military-grade explosives.

Two officers in a special unit that guarded Malaysian ministers were convicted of the killing, but suspicion that Najib and Rosmah were involved hovered for years, with Najib at one point forced to deny he had an affair with the 28-year-old Altantuya.

– Final straw –

The final straw was 1MDB, a fund Najib launched in 2009 to promote economic development.

Soon after he won a second term in 2013, 1MDB slid into a massive debt hole and allegations surfaced that money was missing.

Public disgust with reports that emerged around 2015 detailing the plunder of the sovereign wealth fund snowballed into a Mahathir-led electoral tsunami that left Najib in the crosshairs of police.

US authorities say Najib’s entourage used hundreds of millions in diverted 1MDB funds to purchase high-end real estate in Los Angeles, New York and London. 

Other spending on the public purse included a Monet painting for $35 million, a $5.5 million work by Van Gogh, a $35 million Bombardier jet and financing for the 2013 Hollywood film “The Wolf of Wall Street”, which was produced by Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz.

A 2015 investigative report by the New York Times also alleged that millions of dollars were used to purchase jewellery for Rosmah.

In a speech in December 2017, then-US attorney general Jeff Sessions said of the scandal: “This is kleptocracy at its worst.”

Najib steadfastly denied wrongdoing while persecuting his accusers and shutting down media outlets that reported on the affair.

In the end, the 69-year-old cut a dejected figure in court as the final verdict was read Tuesday.

“We were told he has been taken to Kajang Prison, south of the capital Kuala Lumpur,” Nur Sharmila Shaheen, his daughter-in-law, told AFP.

Twitter misled users and federal regulators about glaring weaknesses in its ability to protect personal data, the platform’s former security chief claimed in whistleblower testimony likely to impact the company’s bitter legal battle over Elon Musk’s takeover bid.

In a complaint filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and published in part Tuesday by The Washington Post and CNN, Peiter Zatko also accused Twitter of significantly underestimating the number of automated bots on the platform — a key element in Musk’s argument for withdrawing his $44 billion buyout deal.

CNN quotes the disclosure by Zatko as accusing Twitter of “negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy.”

Zatko, who Twitter says it fired earlier this year for poor performance, warns of obsolete servers, software vulnerable to computer attacks and executives seeking to hide the number of hacking attempts, both to US authorities and to the company’s board of directors.

The hacker-turned-executive, who goes by the nickname “Mudge,” also claims that Twitter prioritizes growing its user base over fighting spam and bots, according to the reports.

In particular, according to The Washington Post, he accuses the platform’s boss Parag Agrawal of “lying” in a tweet in May.

In the tweet, Agrawal says Twitter is “strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can.”

Twitter has dismissed the allegations.

A company spokesperson told AFP Tuesday that Zatko was fired in January this year for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.”

“What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The “opportunistic timing” of the allegations appears “designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders,” the statement continued.

“Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be.”

– Subpoena by Musk –

The issue of fake accounts is at the heart of the legal battle between Twitter and Tesla chief Musk. 

The billionaire has repeatedly accused the company of minimizing the number of fake accounts and spam on its platform. 

Musk is relying on the argument to justify abandoning his plan to buy Twitter for $44 billion and avoid paying severance.

CNN said Zatko had not been in contact with Musk, and that he had begun the whistleblower process before there was any sign of the billionaire’s involvement in Twitter.

“We have already issued a subpoena for Mr. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding,” Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro told AFP on Tuesday.

The Washington Post and CNN both reported that the US Senate Intelligence Committee wants to meet with Zatko to discuss his accusations.

Zatko was hired in late 2020 by the founder and former boss of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, after a massive hack which saw the accounts of major users including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, reality star Kim Kardashian and Musk himself compromised.