1MDB: Uneven Weight?

 

On 26 December, the High Court convicted and sentenced Najib Razak to 15 years’ imprisonment and imposed a record RM11.4bn fine plus a RM2.1bn asset recovery order in the 1MDB case. A former prime minister now bears the heaviest judicial sanction ever imposed on a leader of this nation. 

This is not a moment for triumphalism. It is a moment for reflection and honesty. For the first time since independence, a man who once stood at the pinnacle of Malaysian political power has been convicted, imprisoned and sentenced for crimes committed while in office. For a second time. This alone marks a rupture in our political culture – one that long believed senior leaders were shielded by status, legacy or expediency. That illusion has been badly shaken. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

 

Najib was not convicted by public anger, social media outrage, or political vendetta. He was convicted by courts of law after long, contested trials, with representation by senior counsel, under intense national and international scrutiny. The offences – abuse of power and money laundering involving billions of ringgits - were not technical lapses or administrative oversights. They went to the heart of fiduciary responsibility. 

Across the country, many are asking uncomfortable but legitimate questions. Why does accountability appear to fall most heavily on one individual, while others implicated in major scandals receive discharges not amounting to acquittal, see charges withdrawn, or quietly re-enter political life? Why do some cases advance slowly but surely, while others languish in procedural limbo until public attention fades? At the centre of that question stands Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).

BNM is not a passive observer of financial misconduct. It regulates banks, enforces anti-money-laundering laws, receives suspicious transaction reports, and is tasked with monitoring transactions involving politically exposed persons. Even parents transferring a few thousand ringgits to their children studying abroad have to account to BNM. 

The extraordinary debt, opaque guarantees, and vast cross-border fund movements associated with 1MDB were precisely the kind of activity that should have set off alarm bells. Yet for years, those bells appeared muted. 

These questions again do not exonerate Najib. But they do expose a deeper wound: the persistent perception that justice in Malaysia is uneven – negotiated behind closed doors, influenced by political alignment, or constrained by power rather than principle. And where are the others in this hideous exercise – J. Low, the CEOs, Chairman, Board and Management of 1MDB and others in power? 

A legal system does not lose legitimacy because it convicts a powerful man. It loses legitimacy when conviction appears selective. Only when justice becomes a standard applied without fear or favour, rather than a moment applied to one man, can this long and painful chapter truly begin to close. Perhaps, a Royal Commission is required to get to the depths of this matter including measures to improve institutions? 

References:

Najib, justice and the uneven weight of the law, Aliran, Joseph Masilamany, 27 December 2025 

1MDB, Bank Negara Malaysia, and the silence that still demands answers, Kua Kia Soong, Letter to the Editor, FMT, 27 December 2025