Swiss court convicts 2 top PetroSaudi executives in fallout from 1MDB Malaysian fund scandal
A Swiss criminal court has convicted two top managers of a Saudi oil company facing charges including fraud and money laundering in a scam that swiped at least $1.8 billion from a Malaysian state-owned investment fund
GENEVA — Switzerland's federal criminal court on Wednesday convicted two top managers of a Saudi oil company on charges including fraud and money laundering in a vast scam that swiped at least $1.8 billion from a Malaysian state-owned investment fund.
PetroSaudi executive Tarek Obaid, a Saudi-Swiss dual national, received a seven-year sentence and British-Swiss associate Patrick Mahony was handed a six-year sentence from the Federal Criminal Court in southern Bellinzona, officials said.
Swiss prosecutors had requested a 10-year prison sentence for Obaid and nine years for Mahony. The court also ordered them to pay $2 billion, plus interest, to the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, sovereign wealth fund, and other fees, officials said.
Over a six-year span starting in 2009, the executives and an adviser to Malaysia's then-Prime Minister Najib Razak hatched a joint venture with 1MDB built in part around false claims that PetroSaudi had access to oil fields in Argentina and Turkmenistan — leading the fund to pour money into the project, according to prosecutors.
During the trial, prosecutor Alice de Chambrier denounced the activities as “the fraud of the century” and said the executives were “calculating and arrogant manipulators, with no scruples, and obscenely greedy," Swiss newspaper Le Temps quoted her as saying during the proceedings in April.
Mahony’s defense lawyer Laurent Baeriswyl blasted a “shocking and totally contested verdict” and expressed confidence in an email to The Associated Press
Read more on abcnews.go.com
