With 1MDB verdict due, will Malaysia’s Najib have to ‘prepare for the worst’?

Malaysia’s High Court is poised on Friday to deliver its verdict in the final criminal trial of jailed former prime minister Najib Razak

, bringing to a close one of Southeast Asia’s most far-reaching corruption sagas.

The case centres on allegations that the disgraced 72-year-old misappropriated 2.3 billion ringgit (US$490 million) from the scandal-ridden Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad

(1MDB). Najib is currently in Kajang Prison, over halfway through a sentence reduced to six years for a conviction in a separate case linked to a former 1MDB subsidiary.

Prosecutors allege the money was siphoned off through a complex network of banks, shell companies and intermediaries while Najib was both prime minister and finance chief.

The High Court in Kuala Lumpur is expected to rule on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering. If Najib is found guilty, he could face lengthy prison terms that could run into decades, depending on whether any sentences are ordered to be served consecutively.

The decision will be delivered at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya and will be closely watched by a Malaysian public split over its opinion towards Najib, who is adored by his loyalists and loathed by critics for the corruption that billowed out under his administration.

It will be delivered by Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah, who presided over the trial and has since been elevated to the Federal Court.