A Malaysian High Court judge said former Prime Minister Najib Razak's financial plunder from the 1MDB fund made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy.
The ruling marks the culmination of a massive corruption trial involving the 1Malaysia Development Bhd sovereign wealth fund, highlighting the unprecedented scale of the theft.
Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah delivered the judgment on Tuesday, June 16 [1]. The written ruling spans between 809 and 810 pages [2, 3]. In the document, Sequerah said that the scale of the offences in the 1MDB scandal surpasses anything Attila the Hun ever did [4].
"The scale of the plunder that took place (financially speaking, of course) made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy in comparison," Sequerah said [5].
The court handed down the sentencing on Friday, June 14 [6]. Najib Razak was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 15 years in prison [7]. Additionally, the court imposed a fine and asset seizure totaling 13.5 billion ringgit, which is approximately $3.3 billion [8].
The proceedings took place at the High Court of Malaysia in Putrajaya [9]. The judge said the financial plunder was enormous, suggesting that the economic impact of the corruption dwarfed historic acts of conquest [10].
“"The scale of the plunder that took place... made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy in comparison."”
The severity of the sentence and the judge's vivid historical comparison underscore the Malaysian judiciary's intent to frame the 1MDB scandal not merely as a political crime, but as one of the largest financial thefts in global history. By equating the plunder to the conquests of Attila the Hun, the court emphasizes the systemic devastation caused to the state's sovereign wealth.
