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NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is asking an American court to allow his lawyers to search for documents and testimony from Goldman Sachs Group Inc to assist him in his defense against criminal charges in Malaysia over the scandal. 1MDB.
In a filing filed Tuesday (November 17) in federal court in Manhattan, Najib requested an injunction allowing his attorneys to serve subpoenas to the company and its former Southeast Asian president, Tim Leissner.
Leissner pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, and admitted to bribing officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to obtain bond deals for the bank.
Goldman Sachs agreed to pay more than $ 5 billion (S $ 6.71 billion), including a record $ 2.3 billion fine in the United States, and pleaded guilty for the first time for his role in the scandal.
Goldman spokesman Andrew Williams did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Najib’s request. Henry Mazurek, Leissner’s attorney, declined to comment on the filing.
Najib was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Malaysia in July in connection with the scandal, but is free on bail and is appealing his conviction.
In his request, he said that Goldman and Leissner likely have documents or testimonies showing that 1MDB officials were involved in the scheme to defraud the state investment fund, received kickbacks or kickbacks, and are now falsely implicating him to avoid liability.
“Leissner and his accomplices took many steps to hide the money trail,” Najib said in court documents.
He said that he was misled about the origin of the funds that entered his account and believed they were political donations from the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
“This effort spanned continents and multiple jurisdictions, included the deployment of a number of shell companies, and involved numerous people,” he said.
The United States Department of Justice says that about 2.7 billion of the $ 6.5 billion that Goldman Sachs helped raise for 1MDB were stolen by people connected to Najib and diverted for bribes, a luxury yacht, artwork and stuff for him. style.
Among the defendants is a Malaysian financier known as Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the fraud, who has denied wrongdoing and remains at large.
Leissner sent his parents Tuesday to secure his $ 20 million bond. He is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced in January.
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