Those charged with stealing money from sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad will get a fair trial, including former leader Najib Razak, MalaysianPrime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday.
"We believe in the rule of law. Whatever the law says, we accept," Mahathir told CNBC's Sri Jegarajah in response to a question about whether Najib can be guaranteed a fair trial.
"I must admit that, in the previous regime, there is an attempt to fiddle with the judiciary. But we want a free judiciary and we hope that they will not be biased," said the prime minister.
Najib has been charged with money laundering offenses in relation to the disappearance of billions of dollars from 1MDB. The person said to be at the center of the scandal, Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, has not been located.
The scandal involved money being illegally transferred across shell companies and individual bank accounts in many countries. The U.S. Department of Justice previously alleged that Najib received $681 million from proceeds misappropriated from a bond issue arranged by Goldman Sachs in 2013.