PETALING JAYA: Fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in absentia by a Kuwaiti court on money laundering charges.
According to a report in Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas, the criminal court had sentenced Jho Low, a sheikh, his partner and a foreigner to 10-year jail terms.
A lawyer was sentenced to seven years on money laundering charges in relation to a “Malaysian fund”.
While the newspaper did not name the Malaysian fund in question, The Sarawak Report stated that it was 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
Al-Qabas said the court ordered those convicted to return US$1bil (RM4.4bil) and they will be fined a total of 183mil Kuwaiti dinars (RM2.6bil).
Kuwait’s public prosecution office had reopened the case following a two-year hiatus due to the lack of information from international parties.
“Investigations showed that about US$1bil (RM4.4bil) entered the account of an influential Kuwaiti person, and then it was transferred abroad," the report said.
Kuwaiti public prosecutors had charged the defendants “as an organised criminal group” with having committed the crime of money laundering in Chinese currency, knowing that these funds were proceeds from crimes, theft of funds and investments of 1MDB.
