NAJIB Razak failed to convince the high court the RM42 million he took from SRC International was for charitable purposes, as it was not his money in the first place to give out. 

Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali stated the money was raised to promote alternative energy resources for Malaysia and not supposed to be disbursed by Najib in his capacity as prime minister. 

“The use of that property by others can never be justified under any circumstances. This is immutable and cannot be obfuscated by any diversions that the certain portions of the monies out of the RM42 million were expended for charitable purposes. There is quite simply no virtue in donating what one does not own,” he said in his 536-page judgment. 

Najib was found guilty on July 28 for all seven criminal charges – three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money-laundering and one count of abuse of power – for abusing his power illicitly to receive RM42 million.

The Pekan MP was sentenced to 12 years’ jail and fined RM210 million. Failure to pay the fine will incur five more years of jail time.

After a week of the sentencing, Najib released a video on social media claiming the RM42 million had been used for welfare programmes, including helping orphans. 

Nazlan said Najib never showed any sign of guilt even after it was established the SRC International funds went into his bank account and maintained he knew nothing about the RM42 million transaction. 

“The accused did not express any remorse and even maintains his defence of no knowledge of the RM42 million from SRC in his mitigation speech. 

“Political history will continue to debate whether he has done on balance more good than harm. But this very process would arguably be inimical to the ideals of a clean administration that does not tolerate corruption and abuse of power,” he said. 

Najib committed a major abuse of power when he was prime minister and used the country’s coffers to enrich himself without any remorse, said Nazlan.

“I would not hesitate to find that this case can be characterised as one that falls within the range of the worst kind of abuse of position, of CBT and of money-laundering because not only of how the crimes were committed.

“But more importantly, also it involved a huge sum of RM42 million, had an element of public impact as the RM42 million belonged to an MOF Inc company – government funds, and could have originated from the RM4 billion financing from state pension fund (KWAP), and which status of the bulk of RM4 billion is told to be an indeterminate obscurity. And perhaps most importantly it involved the person who at the material time was in the highest-ranking authority in the government,” Nazlan said. 

Among the findings from the investigation was Najib used the bulk of the SRC International money for his personal use, including paying back loans used to service his credit cards. 

The money was also used to fund Barisan Nasional and Umno, which Najib was president at the time before the 14th general election. 

“Others include for overtly political purposes as even those activities and projects which appeared to be targeted at the less fortunate in the society were channelled through political organisations, which served the accused’s political benefit and power given his standing as the president of Umno and chairman of BN. And the overriding yet basic point has always been manifest. The RM42 million is the property of SRC,” Nazlan said. – September 9, 2020.