Malaysian PM Najib Razak cleared of charges in $700 million corruption scandal

QUICK PILL

• The announcement has ended months of uncertainty for Najib, who has come under intense pressure to resign over the financial scandal in the biggest political crisis since he took charge in 2009.
• \"No criminal offence was committed as the $681 million transferred into Najib\'s accounts,\" Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali said.

Malaysia's attorney general has stated that the nearly $700 million channeled into Prime Minister Najib Razak's private accounts was a personal donation from the Saudi Arabia's royal family and therefore has cleared him of any criminal wrongdoing.

The announcement has ended months of uncertainty for Najib, who has come under intense pressure to resign over the financial scandal in the biggest political crisis since he took took over as PM in 2009.

Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali said: "Investigations by the country's anti-corruption agency showed that no criminal offence was committed as the $681 million transferred into Najib's accounts in early 2013 was "given without any consideration" by the Saudi royal family as a personal donation."

The story so far

From 29 to 30 August 2015, for thirty-four hours, nonstop, over 2,00,000 Malaysians in yellow shirts crowded the avenues of Kuala Lumpur. The protesters called for Najib Razak, to step down amid corruption allegations. A group named Bersih (which means "clean," in Malay) spearheaded the protests.

Though police had not responded with force, the government had declared the marches "illegal" and blocked the official website of Bersih.

Opposition to Najib steadily mounted after it was revealed in July that he received $700 million from an unknown source.

Razak had claimed that he received the funds from a Middle East donor. It was strongly suspected, however, that the payment was siphoned out of the state-owned development company 1MDB, which is currently indebted by $11 billion (Najib also sits on the organisation's advisory board).

With agency inputs