The fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, widely known as Jho Low, has filed a pardon request with the US president that would, if granted, remove US criminal charges against him over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal. The request was filed in recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. A White House official told the WSJ that Low's request was not currently on the White House's radar.
Low is accused of being the architect behind the siphoning of about $4.5bn from the Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad between 2009 and 2014, and faces charges including corruption and money laundering in both the United States and Malaysia, the Guardian reported. He has consistently denied wrongdoing and his whereabouts remain unknown.
A pending request for a "pardon after completion of sentence" filed this year under Taek Jho Low is listed on the US Justice Department website, Channel News Asia reported. The same outlet reported that Johari Abdul Ghani, chair of Malaysia's 1MDB asset-recovery taskforce and trade minister, told Reuters by text message: "As far as I'm concerned, I'm against the pardon," and said the US should instead help Malaysia locate Low. Malaysia had temporarily lifted an Interpol red notice against Low to facilitate the return of assets, the Guardian reported, and in 2019 Washington struck a deal to recoup about $1bn from him, including a private jet and real estate in Beverly Hills, New York and London.
The 1MDB case was one of the world's biggest financial frauds, with billions plundered from the now-defunct sovereign wealth fund in a scandal that began to unfold in 2015. 
Donald Trump has not publicly commented on Low's filing.
Figures referenced: Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
