Scale of 1MDB looting ‘made Attila the Hun look like choirboy’, says High Court judge in 809-page judgement

KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 — The judge who heard Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1MDB criminal trial described the scale of the fund’s plunder as so colossal that it made Attila the Hun, a fifth-century ruler remembered for his conquests across Europe, look like a “choirboy”.

According to The Edge, Federal Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah, who sat as the trial High Court judge, made the remark in his 810-page grounds of judgment released today.

“The scale of the plunder that took place (financially speaking, of course) made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy in comparison,” Sequerah wrote.

The judge also noted that the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal had been described by the world and the press as the “largest episode of kleptocracy in the world”.

Attila was a fifth-century ruler of the Huns, remembered as a feared conqueror whose armies invaded and pillaged large parts of Europe.

In the judgment, Sequerah also set out the difficulties faced by the court in completing the long-running trial, which involved 50 prosecution witnesses and 26 defence witnesses, including Najib himself.

He said Najib had been charged in 2018 and the case was transferred to the Kuala Lumpur High Court on October 31 that year, but the trial only began on August 19, 2019 to allow the SRC International Sdn Bhd case to proceed first.

The trial was later disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with proceedings put on hold from March 19, 2020, resulting in 19 trial days being lost, while another nine dates were vacated due to Covid-19 infections or close-contact issues involving those in the proceedings.

Sequerah found Najib guilty on all four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving RM2.27 billion, with the former prime minister sentenced on December 26, 2025 to 15 years’ jail and a RM11.38 billion fine, which he is appealing at the Court of Appeal.

Najib is currently imprisoned over his separate SRC conviction involving criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering.