KUALA LUMPUR: Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was arrested on Tuesday afternoon (Jul 3) in relation to the probe into SRC International, a former unit of state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

He will be charged in court on Wednesday at 8.30am, the 1MDB task force investigating the scandal said in a statement, adding that Najib was arrested at his private residence in Kuala Lumpur.

Anti-corruption officers arrived at his house "in three to four unmarked cars", a senior security official familiar with the arrest told AFP.

He was then taken to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Putrajaya where he will spend the night in lock-up.



Najib was being investigated over allegations that billions of dollars were looted from 1MDB, which he founded. SRC International was created in 2011 by Najib's government to pursue overseas investments in energy resources, and was a unit of 1MDB until it was moved to the finance ministry in 2012.



The probe into the multi-billion dollar scandal moved swiftly after the Pakatan Harapan coalition, led by Mahathir Mohamad, won the May 9 general election.

Later that same month, Najib was summoned to the MACC headquarters to explain a suspicious transfer of RM42 million (US$10.6 million) into his bank account.

Police also raided properties linked to Najib and seized truckloads of items that are alleged to have been obtained with 1MDB funds.

Both Najib and the fund have denied any wrongdoing.

​​​​​​​On Monday, the 1MDB special task force announced that more than 400 bank accounts involving RM1.1 billion of funds from individuals, political parties and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were frozen in relation to the probe.</s>TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Najib Razak, the former Malaysian prime minister, has been arrested for his alleged role in the 1MDB scandal, which saw billions embezzled from a government fund.

Najib, who was toppled from power in May, was arrested in his Kuala Lumpur home on Tuesday afternoon and will be charged in court in the Malaysian capital on Wednesday morning, according to a statement from the team investigating 1MDB.

The former prime minster was picked up from his property using three unmarked cars and taken to the Malaysian anti-corruption agency (MACC) headquarters in Putrajaya.

His arrest came after the newly elected government, led by 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, reopened the investigation into 1MDB the moment it came into power in May and pledged to bring to justice all of those responsible for the multibillion dollar fraud, The Guardian reported.

Mahathir said last week that authorities had an almost “perfect case” against Najib on charges including bribery, theft of government funds and embezzlement.</s>KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The government of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak spent years systematically obstructing probes into the alleged looting of state fund 1MDB, while also ruthlessly muzzling critics, according to current and former government officials.

They said the meddling in the investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) effectively shut down local inquiries into the scandal at 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) even as five other countries, including the United States, Switzerland and Singapore, carried out their own probes.

Any suppression of the probe in Malaysia ended abruptly in May when Najib lost power in an election. On Tuesday, Najib was arrested by the Malaysian authorities in relation to a probe into SRC International, a former 1MDB unit, according to an investigating task force. Sources close to the matter said he may face several charges.

Najib, who lost power in an election last month, has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to 1MDB and SRC. A current Najib aide declined to respond to allegations there was meddling and a cover-up.

Interviews by Reuters with a dozen current and former government officials show that the obstruction of investigators occurred on multiple levels.

One senior MACC investigator said he was convinced there was tampering with key witnesses. The official, who declined to be identified because he is still involved in the 1MDB probe, said he felt that by the time MACC got to talk to the witnesses they had been coached on what to say or were too frightened to talk because they had been threatened.

Other witnesses couldn’t be found. “There were some witnesses who disappeared, ran abroad,” and some were clearly told by officials from other government agencies to do so, said the MACC official. He didn’t name these witnesses because some of them are still being sought.

Najib’s office also sought to tightly control any public comment on 1MDB.

MACC is supposed to be an independent government agency that works without government interference, but three former MACC communications officers told Reuters that many of the press releases on the 1MDB probe issued by MACC were written by the prime minister’s office.

And it wasn’t just at the anti-corruption agency that the heat was intense.

New Finance Minister, Lim Guan Eng, told Reuters there was an “extensive cover up” at the ministry of finance (MOF).

Malaysia’s new Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told Reuters the week before last that he holds Najib fully responsible for the 1MDB scandal and that Malaysian authorities have “an almost perfect case” against him.

As a result of an anti-kleptocracy probe, the U.S. Department of Justice has alleged more than $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and that about $700 million of the fund’s money ended up in Najib’s personal bank accounts.

Najib told Reuters in an interview last month he shouldn’t be blamed for any of the problems at the fund and declared he knew nothing about why hundreds of millions of dollars from 1MDB allegedly appeared in his bank account.

Some of the ways in which those looking into the 1MDB scandal had been sidelined have been known for some time.

For example, in July 2015, Najib removed the then attorney general Abdul Gani Patail for “health reasons” at a time when the official was preparing to charge Najib. He also removed deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin the same month after he had criticized Najib over his handling of the scandal.

But the intensity of the pressure that MACC faced from other arms of government is only now becoming clear.

BULLET SENT TO HIS HOME

In May, about two weeks after Najib’s ousting, the newly appointed head of the MACC, Mohn Shukri Abdull, recalled how his investigation into 1MDB had been blocked in 2015.

Shukri, who had been deputy commissioner at MACC until he retired two years ago, recalled how he had faced threats to his job and worse - a bullet was sent to his home in 2015. He sought and received U.S. police protection during a visit to Washington and New York because he felt he was being followed by Malaysian government agents.

“We didn’t know who were the main people who were putting the pressure on MACC, but there were many of them,” another MACC official said. It “was coming from all sides.”

The senior MACC official also said police interfered in MACC’s investigations as they closed in on a probe on how about $10.6 million from SRC went into Najib’s bank account.

He said some witnesses in that probe could not be found because they were being held at police headquarters.

Malaysian police did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Khalid Abu Bakar, who was Malaysia’s police chief from 2012-2017, has been barred from leaving Malaysia since the election. Mahathir has said Khalid would be investigated for his role in the 1MDB probe.

Khalid did not respond to a request for comment.

When asked about the sacking and transfer of officials involved in the probe, the Najib aide said the actions were to suppress a “political coup”. He denied there had been intimidation.

A senior government source said civil servants at the MOF, which was also run by Najib, were instructed to cover up the 1MDB affair.

“Decisions were made at PMO (prime minister’s office). And MOF had to find a way to hide it and figure out a way to pay for it,” this person said.

Checks and balances were ignored. For example, a member of the auditor general’s team who looked at 1MDB’s finances in 2015 said the fund was highly secretive, and did not release all its documents and hard disks to the auditors.

Najib acknowledged in the Reuters interview that “there were certain short-term payments that needed to be done” in relation to 1MDB after the fund had become so politicized that it couldn’t act on its own.</s>KUALA LUMPUR: Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was arrested by anti-corruption investigators Tuesday, officials said, the latest dramatic development in a widening graft probe that has engulfed the ex-leader.

Najib, 64, will be charged Wednesday, a taskforce set up to probe wrongdoing at state fund 1MDB said in a statement, adding he was apprehended "at his home".

The arrest is the latest in a series of stunning moves by investigators that suggest the legal noose is tightening around Najib, his family and many of his close political and business allies. Malaysia´s official news agency Bernama said the former premier is expected to face more than 10 counts of committing criminal breach of trust linked to SRC International Sdn Bhd, an energy company that was originally a subsidiary of 1MDB.

According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, $10.6 million originating from SRC was transferred to Najib´s personal bank accounts, just one small part of hundreds of millions of dollars from 1MDB that allegedly ended up in his accounts.

Najib had been summoned twice by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) over its investigation into a case related to SRC. The newly appointed attorney general Tommy Thomas would lead the prosecution team, according to Bernama.

Allegations of massive corruption were a major factor behind the shock election loss in May of Najib´s long-ruling coalition to a reformist alliance headed by his former mentor Mahathir Mohamad.

Najib and his cronies were accused of plundering billions of dollars from the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund to buy everything from US real estate to artworks. Najib and the fund deny any wrongdoing. Since the election loss Najib has been banned from leaving the country and has found himself at the centre of a widening graft probe.</s>A Malaysian judge has approved bail at $250,000 for former Prime Minister Najib Razak in corruption case

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — A Malaysian judge has approved bail at $250,000 for former Prime Minister Najib Razak in corruption case.</s>Kuala Lumpur: Charge sheets obtained by Fairfax Media reveal that former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak could spend up to 20 years in prison, pay $50 million or more in fines, and be subject to whipping over three charges involving the misuse of up to $19 million of his people's money.

Mr Razak is accused of using his position to "obtain for yourself" $14 million from a sovereign wealth fund, SRC International. The charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to five times the value of amount received, is one of three charges laid in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

The alleged corruption happened between August 2011 and February 2012, the charge says, when Najib, "at the Prime Minister's Office ... as a public officer, namely the Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Malaysia, used your position to obtain for yourself the sum of forty-two million ringgit".

He took the money, the charges allege, when he "participated in or involved yourself in decisions on behalf of the Malaysian government to give government guarantees for loans amounting to four billion ringgit ($1.34 billion)".

Two other charges allege that Najib committed "criminal breach of trust" in dealing with a further $5 million. These charges relate to his actions in five days over Christmas in 2014, and the months of February and March, 2015 respectively.</s>KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Prominent lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah is representing Datuk Seri Najib Razak today in the latter’s high profile case believed to be over funds misappropriated from former 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd.

Najib is currently sitting in the dock in a packed courtroom in Kuala Lumpur, where the former prime minister is expected to be charged.

Prior to this, it was not known who will represent Najib who has already parted ways with two separate legal teams.

In the prosecution initiated about two months after Najib’s Barisan Nasional coalition lost federal power, new Attorney General (AG) Tommy Thomas is the lead prosecutor and is accompanied today by 11 deputies.

Lawyers representing Najib's wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, have requested permission to hold a watching brief of the trial.

Yesterday, state news agency Bernama reported that Najib is expected to be charged with over 10 counts of criminal breach of trust in relation to SRC International.

Under Section 409 of the Penal Code which covers the offence of criminal breach of trust by a public servant over property he is entrusted with or have control over, the penalty is a jail term of between two years and 20 years and whipping and fine.

The government’s special taskforce for the 1MDB scandal yesterday announced that Najib was arrested at his private residence at 2.35pm in relation to former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd and would be charged this morning in Kuala Lumpur.

On July 2, 2015, Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that investigators probing state investment firm 1MDB had found US$681 million (RM2.6 billion) deposited in Najib’s personal bank accounts just before the 13th general election, with RM42 million believed to have originated from SRC International.

In 2016, then-AG Tan Sri Apandi Ali cleared Najib of wrongdoing, claiming that the RM2.6 billion was a personal donation from the Saudi royal family and that Najib had alleged returned US$620 million to the Saudi royalty in August 2013.

Apandi had then said he had also found Najib committed no wrongdoing over the RM42 million deposited by SRC International into Najib’s bank account.

MORE TO COME</s>Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was officially charged with criminal breach of trust on Wednesday (July 4).

Hundreds of supporters, including his son Pekan Umno Youth chief Mohd Nizar Mohd Najib, showed up as early as 5am at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex to greet the ex-Malaysian premier with chants of “God Save You” and “Save Najib”.

Upon Najib’s arrival at about 8am, he smiled at his supporters as he was escorted into the building. His presence ignited the supporters, who jostled with security personnel as they tried to get closer to him, Malay Mail reported.

The security struggled to restrain the supporters as they became more and more rowdy, with some also seen trying to force their way past the security cordon.

One of the supporters present, Pekan Umno youth committee member Hussein Ahmad, said they wanted to show their division chief moral support as they knew him better, reported The Star.

“Those of us in Pekan know him better and we feel that the charges against him are baseless and about political revenge,” said Hussein, who was carrying a placard that read “respect civil rights”.

Mohd Nizar, who was one of the children from Najib’s first marriage, declined to speak to the media.

Nearly 50 people also showed up outside the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) headquarters on Tuesday evening to show their support for Najib.</s>A Malaysian judge has approved bail at $250,000 for former Prime Minister Najib Razak in corruption case

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — A Malaysian judge has approved bail at $250,000 for former Prime Minister Najib Razak in corruption case.</s>In an exclusive interview at the WSJ CEO Council in Tokyo, newly elected Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad revealed he plans to remain in power for "one or two years" rather than hand the reins to longtime opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was arrested Tuesday in connection with a multibillion-dollar financial scandal at the heart of his government.

Mr. Najib quashed an investigation into the scandal when it exploded three years ago. But he is no longer able to dictate events after being cast from office in a stunning election loss in May, and Malaysia’s new rulers are eager to unearth what went on at troubled state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is arrested for allegedly misusing state funds.