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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Tuesday asked a US court for permission to search for documents and testimony from investment bank Goldman Sachs to help him defend against criminal charges in Malaysia over the financial scandal. 1MDB.
Najib, who is out on bail after being sentenced to 12 years in jail in July on corruption and money laundering charges, is expected to appeal the conviction in February and faces four more trials related to the scandal.
The US Department of Justice has said that roughly US $ 4.5 billion (RM18.4 billion) was embezzled from the state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), which Najib co-founded in 2009, including some funds that Goldman had helped. to collect for the company.
In a court docket in New York, Najib said Goldman Sachs and its former Southeast Asian president Tim Leissner likely had evidence that 1MDB officials planned to defraud the fund and were now falsely implicating it to avoid liability.
Najib added that efforts by Leissner and others to hide the money trail misled him into believing that the 1MDB funds that entered his accounts were political donations from the Saudi royal family.
“This effort spanned continents and multiple jurisdictions, included the deployment of a number of shell companies, and involved numerous people,” Najib said at the presentation.
A Goldman Sachs spokesperson declined to comment, as did an attorney for Leissner.
Goldman agreed to pay more than US $ 5 billion (RM20.5 billion), including a record US $ 2.9 billion (RM11.9 billion) in the United States, to settle inquiries into its role in the subscription of US $ 6.5 billion (RM26.6 billion) in bonds. sales for 1MDB.
Leissner pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 2018. – Reuters
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