Al Jazeera :
Malaysia has halved the sentence of disgraced former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was convicted and sent to jail for 12 years for corruption in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal.
Najib is set to be released on August 23, 2028, and fines imposed on him reduced to 50 million ringgit ($10.6m) from 210 million ringgit ($44.5m), the pardons board said on Friday.
If he fails to pay the fine an additional year will be imposed on his jail term, the board said in a statement.
Najib, the first premier in the country’s history to be jailed, remains on trial in multiple cases related to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state fund he established as prime minister to spur economic development.
But investigators say it was instead plundered to buy the Equanimity superyacht, high-end properties, and finance the production of The Wolf of Wall Street film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Some $4.5bn was stolen, with hundreds of millions ending up in accounts linked to the former prime minister, according to investigators in Malaysia and the United States.
Najib was acquitted of audit tampering in connection with 1MDB, but has not shown any contrition for the scandal. He has sought to focus attention on Jho Low, the Malaysian financier who is accused of masterminding the scheme and is now a fugitive.
The British-educated son of Malay nobility, Najib was prime minister from 2009 until 2018 when public fury over the scandal led to his United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party losing power for the first time since Malaysia secured its independence in 1957.
The US Department of Justice described the 1MDB case as “kleptocracy at its worst”.