Money, power… Jesus?
All about the rise of the Malaysian Christian political class.
This was supposed to go out this morning, but I had some stuff to clear.
Working on this particular edition became laborious because I have to be mindful of who or what is reading this.
But since it’s still the Christmas season, I’ll go with something festive.
First, Malaysia’s High Court convicted former PM Najib Razak on all 25 charges — four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering — in the main 1MDB trial, involving the misappropriation of about RM2.28 billion from the government-owned fund into his personal accounts.
Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah rejected Najib’s defence that funds were legitimate Arab donations, describing the narrative as implausible and the supporting letters as probable forgeries.
Sequerah also highlighted Najib’s close ties to fugitive financier Jho Low, who acted as his proxy in the scandal.
Najib was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment (to run consecutively after his current term) and fined a substantial amount, marking a significant milestone in one of the world’s largest financial fraud cases.
The former PM will be appealing, so this will take a while. Still, it’s good news for me.
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I’ll definitely need more than a single newsletter to properly flesh out Malaysian Christians and their relationship with money and power.
But I’ll spare you the drama and zero in on the early 2000s, when it was a hive of activity for Christians.
I got caught in this wave. What can I say? I had a kooky pre-journalism life.
Two decades on, though, it’s worth asking: did they change the system, or did the system change them?