Jan. 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razaj has filed a request on Thursday with the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to seek his release or a new trial over the corruption scandal surrounding the 1MDB fund. .
Shafee Abudlá, a lawyer for Najib, who has been jailed since he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement in the case, has argued that the court that decided his case and found in favor of his conviction committed “serious defects”.
Najib entered prison last August after an appeals court confirmed the sentence against him after finding him guilty of crimes of money laundering and abuse of office by taking 42 million ringgit (about 9.2 million euros ) of SRC International, a subsidiary of 1MDB, a state fund created by himself.
Now, Shafee has indicated that the UN working group is scheduled to meet early this year to address the matter, according to reports from the Malaysia Now news portal.
He has also indicated that the defense team will deliver a copy of the request to the Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim. “A copy has been sent as a courtesy,” he said.
Najib, who was ousted by a coalition led by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, has faced accusations of money laundering since The Wall Street Journal reported in 2015 that $681 million had been transferred to one of his personal accounts.
