SEPT 4 — The Swiss Federal Criminal Court last week (August 28) convicted two executives from an oil exploration company, PetroSaudi, for embezzling more than US$1.8 billion (RM7.8 billion) from investment fund 1MDB.

Swiss prosecutors alleged that Swiss-British national Patrick Mahony and Swiss-Saudi Tarek Obaid had helped set up PetroSaudi, a joint venture (JV) with 1MDB by creating the impression that the JV was backed by Saudi Arabia’s government.

Obaid and Mahony were sentenced to seven and six years in prison respectively. The Swiss court also ordered that their assets, including property in Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and funds totalling more than US$240 million in multiple bank accounts, be confiscated and returned to 1MDB.

The English version of a press release dated August 28 on the convictions and sentences stated that the Swiss court found that the two accused persons, acting in concert with persons working for 1MDB, had set up a fraud which enabled them, to the detriment of 1MDB, to collect US$1 billion on the basis of a false joint venture partnership between PetroSaudi and 1MDB.

The press release further stated as follows:

"In August and September 2009, the [accused persons] have developed an investment partnership proposal consisting of an alleged government-to-government partnership between Saudi Arabia — for which the PetroSaudi group was falsely presented as the vehicle — and Malaysia — through 1MDB. They acted in concert with Jho Low — a confidant of the then Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and an informal consultant holding no official position within 1MDB – as well as with the support of two members of 1MDB management and Najib Razak himself.

"The [accused persons] attempted to make the members of 1MDB’s Board of Directors believe that PetroSaudi was linked to the Saudi Arabian government on one hand, and that PetroSaudi would contribute significant oil assets to the joint venture on the other hand, both of which they knew to be untrue. The [accused persons]’ actions gave rise to a degree of trust on the part of [certain members of 1MDB’s Board of Director]) and placed the latter in a delicate position.

"These circumstances made it possible to carry out the erroneous belief, which was aimed at transferring USD1 billion to the joint venture, only to embezzle it. In accordance with the plan drawn up by the [accused persons] and their co-conspirators, this amount left 1MDB’s corporate accounts on September 30, 2009. Seven-tenths of this sum were transferred to a bank account held by a company owned by Jho Low, which in turn transferred part of it back to the [accused persons]; the remainder was used by the participants in the offence for their own benefits.”

The press release cautioned that only the written version of the judgment is authoritative.

Najib Razak was not on trial before the Swiss court, but the August 28 press release mentioned the former prime minister’s name twice, as reported by Malay Mail.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.