Judge: Najib Razak's 1MDB Plunder Dwarfed Attila the Hun

In his 809-page grounds of judgment, the judge who convicted the former prime minister said he was no ‘ignoramus’ misled by Jho Low

2 -MIN READ2 -MIN

Published: 8:23pm, 16 Jun 2026

The judge who convicted former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak over the 1MDB scandal said the plunder of the sovereign wealth fund was so vast that it eclipsed the exploits of Attila the Hun, one of history’s most notorious conquerors.

“The scale of the plunder that took place (financially speaking, of course) made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy in comparison,” Collin Lawrence Sequerah said in the introduction to his 809-page grounds of judgment.

The written judgment was issued on Tuesday, nearly six months after Sequerah found Najib guilty on all charges in the long-running 1MDB trial and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

The former prime minister, who led Malaysia from 2009 to 2018, has already been in jail since 2022 after being convicted in a separate case linked to the fund, formally known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

02:13

Former Malaysian prime minister Najib found guilty in final 1MDB criminal case

Established during Najib’s first year in office, 1MDB became the centre of a global corruption scandal after billions of dollars were allegedly siphoned from the fund, triggering investigations across multiple jurisdictions.