Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was convicted of embezzling $539 million in state funds.
Razak, already facing years in jail for an earlier conviction, was part of a complex scandal involving the Malaysian financier Jho Low, who allegedly stole $4.5 billion from a state-owned development company and used the cash to, among other things, fund the Oscar-nominated movie The Wolf of Wall Street.
The affair has also seen the rapper Pras Michel, formerly of The Fugees, jailed for 14 years in the US for acting as a foreign agent. Razak’s party is still in power, and the trial is a significant test of the rule of law in Malaysia, analysts told Al Jazeera.