KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA (AP) – Former Malaysian first lady Rosmah Mansor was ordered to serve 10 years in prison after being found guilty yesterday of soliciting and receiving bribes during her husband’s corruption-tainted administration, a week after he was imprisoned over the massive looting of the 1MDB state fund.
Rosmah was convicted on a charge of soliciting MYR187.5 million and two charges of receiving MYR6.5 million between 2016 and 2017 to help a company secure a project to provide solar energy panels to schools on Borneo island.
The court sentenced her to 10 years in prison on each charge, to be served concurrently, and a total fine of MYR970 million (USD217 million).
She will be allowed to remain free on bail pending her appeal to higher courts.
High Court Judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan said prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Rosmah corruptly solicited bribes and received money as a reward for herself.
He said her defence was a “bare denial, devoid of credible evidence”.
Earlier, Rosmah made an emotional plea from the dock, saying she was saddened and felt she wasn’t given justice. She said she had never solicited any funds or taken a single cent while she was heading charity foundations during her time as the prime minister’s wife.
She also decried as political persecution the events that led to Najib being jailed and her family being made to suffer.
“I do not even know the cost of the project. So I am just telling the truth and nothing else but the truth,” she said. “If that’s your conclusion, I surrender to God.”
Defence lawyer Jagjit Singh later told reporters that the amount of the fine was the largest ever in Malaysia’s history.
He said Rosmah was shocked and upset, and that they plan to appeal to higher courts. Under the law, each charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of five times the bribes solicited and received.
Her conviction was another blow after Najib began a 12-year prison term last Tuesday after losing his final appeal in one of the five graft cases against him involving the multibillion-dollar pilfering of 1MDB.
Before the verdict, Judge Zaini also rejected Rosmah’s application to disqualify him after an alleged guilty judgement leaked online.
Police said the leaked document was work done within the court’s research unit and was not the judgement, but Rosmah’s defence said they lost confidence the judge could be fair.
The judge said he didn’t request the research and that those were not his grounds.
He said he didn’t read the documents, had done his own research and wasn’t prejudiced against Rosmah.
Malaysia’s top court earlier slammed the action of the website, run by a blogger based in England, as “a deliberate act” to smear the court’s reputation.
Last week, the same website published a document it said was the Federal Court’s guilty verdict against Najib, just before the ruling was read out in court. The court has said that leaked document was a working draft of the ruling. The court has filed complaints with police over both leaks.
Najib and Rosmah have been hit with multiple charges of graft after the shocking ouster of his United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in the 2018 elections, fuelled by public anger over the 1MDB scandal.
UMNO has since returned to power after defections caused the collapse of the reformist government that won the 2018 polls.
Rosmah’s trial shed light on her alleged sway in the government since her husband took office in 2009. Prosecutors said Rosmah wielded considerable influence due to her “overbearing nature”, even though she held no official position.
Witnesses testified that a special department, called First Lady of Malaysia, was set up to handle Rosmah’s affairs.