KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 — The former head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs Malaysia, Roger Ng, who was convicted for abetment in the billions of dollars stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), has been granted a last minute postponement of his 10-year prison sentence in the United States.

Ng was supposed to start his prison term on August 7, but New York district judge Margo Brodie allowed him to postpone it for 30 days pending talks between the US and Malaysian governments about his possible return here to aid in local 1MDB investigations, news agency Bloomberg reported yesterday.

Assistant US Attorney Drew Rolle who prosecuted was reported to have objected to the postponement and argued that Ng would be free for even longer if he was allowed to return to Malaysia.

“He wants to go back to Malaysia where he will continue to be free,” the prosecutor was quoted as saying.

Rolle told the court that there was strong public interest to imprison Ng immediately, adding that the latter could still help with the Malaysian 1MDB investigation while serving time in the US.

Ng’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo told the New York court that there was a previous agreement between the US and Malaysian governments for Ng’s return.

“They want Mr Ng in Malaysia. They want to finish their case,” he was quoted as saying, and asked the court to postpone the convict’s surrender for 45 days.

But Rolle said that the US is in continued talks with Malaysia about how Ng can return to his home country after beginning to serve his sentence.

“It is a process resolved by discussions between two sovereign governments,” he was quoted as saying.

The judge allowed the postponement so that intergovernmental talks could continue, noting that US-Malaysia interests “may not be aligned.”

“It really is up to the countries what they want to do and how they want to do it,” the judge was quoted as saying.

This is the second time Ng has been granted a temporary reprieve to being sent to jail.

He had asked for leniency in March ahead of sentencing to spend time with his wife and daughter – now aged 11– whom he said he had not seen since she was six years old and was granted a three-month postponement.

Ng was convicted by the US court in April 2022 with Sachs conspiring with his former Goldman boss Tim Leissner and fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low in what is said to be the world’s biggest financial scandal involving the Malaysian sovereign investment fund.US prosecutors said Ng received millions of dollars in kickbacks from three bond deals Goldman Sachs arranged for 1MDB.

The US investment bank paid more than US$2.9 billion, the largest penalty of its kind in US history, and more than US$5 billion globally for its role in the scheme.

Ng, who also faces charges in Malaysia related to 1MDB, was extradited to first face US prosecution.