World
Swiss court convicts two executives of embezzling $1.8bn from 1MDB
Court sentences PetroSaudi executives to six and seven years in Malaysia investment fund fraud case.
The Swiss Federal Criminal Court has convicted two executives from an oil exploration company for embezzling more than $1.8bn from Malaysia’s state investment fund 1MDB.
The verdict on Wednesday was the latest episode in the 1MDB scandal, a complex tale of international corruption that has buffeted a slew of financial institutions and individuals across the globe since allegations of wrongdoing first surfaced in 2015.
Prosecutors alleged that Swiss-British national Patrick Mahony and Swiss-Saudi Tarek Obaid had helped set up a joint venture with 1MDB by creating the impression that their company, PetroSaudi, was backed by Saudi Arabia’s government.
This was not the case, but the accused managed to persuade 1MDB’s board into signing up to the scheme in 2009 before going on to defraud the fund, prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, the two executives defrauded the wealth fund of $1.8bn to enrich themselves with Obaid getting at least $805m and Mahony at least $37m.
Obaid was sentenced to seven years in prison while Mahony received a sentence of six years.
Lawyers for the two men, who had denied wrongdoing, could not immediately be reached for comment by the Reuters news agency.
Prosecutors said the two men created the fraudulent scheme with fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, an adviser to former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is in prison over his role in the multibillion-dollar scandal.
Initially extracting $1bn from 1MDB so it could buy a stake in their venture, the accused took a further $830m from the fund from 2010 to 2011 as part of an Islamic loan that followed on from their tie-up, prosecutors said.
From September 2009 to at least July 2015, the accused arranged for bank accounts to be opened in Switzerland to help launder the money, prosecutors said.
They used it to buy real estate in Switzerland and London, jewellery and private equity as well as to develop the PetroSaudi business, from which they received a sizeable income, and to maintain “a lavish lifestyle”, prosecutors said.
This year, 1MDB filed a lawsuit against Mahony seeking the return of the $1.83bn.
The 1MDB board lauded the convictions. “We welcome today’s verdict in Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court, which means that Patrick Mahony and Tarek Obaid will face justice for their role in embezzling and defrauding the people of Malaysia,” a 1MDB spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Malaysian and US investigators estimated a total of $4.5bn was syphoned away from 1MDB after its inception in 2009, implicating figures ranging from Razak, Goldman Sachs staff and high-level officials elsewhere.
Last year, a US court sentenced Ng Chong Hwa – known as “Roger Ng” – a Malaysian citizen and former manager at Goldman Sachs to 10 years in jail “for conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled” from 1MDB.
In June, the US Department of Justice said it helped recover an additional $156m in 1MDB funds for Malaysia, bringing the total money returned to Kuala Lumpur to about $1.4bn.
US prosecutors say 1MDB officials and their associates embezzled the money and spent it on a “variety of extravagant items, including luxury homes” and fine art.
World
Secret Service Agent Assigned to Jill Biden Shoots Self in Leg
A U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to former First Lady Jill Biden accidentally shot himself in the leg early on Friday near Philadelphia International Airport, according to a source familiar with the incident.
In a statement that did not mention Biden, the Secret Service said the incident occurred just after 8:30 a.m. EST and the agent suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
“There was no impact to the protectee’s movement and they were not present at the time of the incident,” the statement said.
The agent “accidentally discharged his firearm” while traveling in an unmarked SUV near the airport, Philadelphia Police Department Cpl. Jasmine Colón-Reilly said in a statement.
Emergency medical personnel responded to the scene and the agent was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in stable condition, Colón-Reilly said.
“The Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility will be reviewing the facts and circumstances of this incident,” the Secret Service said.
The Secret Service is responsible for providing security to current and former presidents, vice presidents and their families and foreign leaders and is also an investigative agency.
—
(Reporting by Christian Martinez in Los Angeles; editing by Scott Malone and Chris Reese)
World
Body found in search for missing American Airlines flight attendant in Colombia: mayor
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A mayor in Colombia announced that a corpse had been discovered and was likely that of an American citizen who had gone missing.
Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina, a 32-year-old American Airlines flight attendant from Texas, had gone missing while in the foreign country, according to reports.
“Since last Sunday, we have been searching for Eric Gutiérrez, a U.S. citizen who is missing,” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez noted in a Friday post on X, according to a translation from Spanish.
AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT ATTENDANT VANISHES DURING COLOMBIA LAYOVER: ‘HIS FAMILY IS DESPERATE’
Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez speaks during a press conference on Dec. 19, 2025. (JAIME SALDARRIAGA / AFP via Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, a lifeless body has just been found between the municipality of Jericó and Puente Iglesias,” he noted.
“There is a very high probability that it is this person,” the mayor explained.
COLOMBIAN MILITARY PLANE CRASH KILLS AT LEAST 66, HEAD OF ARMED FORCES SAYS
Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina (CDColExt/X)
“We are heartbroken by the tragic passing of our colleague,” American Airlines noted in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Saturday.
‘AMERICAS COUNTER CARTEL COALITION’: INSIDE THE US STRATEGY TO COMBAT NARCO TERROR, CONFRONT CHINA, OTHER FOES
An American Airlines Airbus A321 departs from Harry Reid International Airport on March 11, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
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“Our thoughts and support are with his family, loved ones and colleagues during this difficult time, and we are doing all we can to assist Colombian law enforcement in its investigation,” the company added.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch contributed to this report
World
Hundreds of thousands march through London in stand against the far right
London, United Kingdom – Hundreds of thousands of people have marched through central London in what organisers are calling the largest ever demonstration against the far right in British history.
The Together Alliance march, backed by about 500 groups including trade unions, antiracism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, brought together a diverse crowd of all ages from across the country on Saturday, converging on Whitehall near the Houses of Parliament.
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Organisers said that half a million people took part.
Kevin Courtney, chairman of the Together Alliance, told crowds the march “gives us all confidence to carry on.”
London’s Metropolitan Police put the figure considerably lower, at approximately 50,000, though officers acknowledged it was difficult to reach an accurate figure given how spread out the crowds were.
The protest was met with a far smaller group of counterprotesters waving Israeli flags and Iran’s pre-1979 monarchical flag.
Aadam Muuse, a trade union activist, told Al Jazeera that racism and Islamophobia had moved from the fringes into mainstream politics, and was “being pushed by parliamentarians”.
He said the march was “much needed to push back against [Reform leader Nigel] Farage and his ilk,” adding that the populist party “must be defeated at the ballot box”.
Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from the march, said demonstrators were pushing back against what they saw as “the politics of hate and division” in the United Kingdom.
One demonstrator, activist and writer Hamja Ahsan, told Al Jazeera he was motivated to attend after a rally organised by the far-right agitator-activist Tommy Robinson that drew 150,000 people and was marred by violence that injured several police officers. Robinson is reportedly planning another rally in May.
“We need to show them that we’re the majority,” Ahsan said. “At a street level, the far right won’t take over our streets.”
He said the atmosphere on Saturday was akin to the Notting Hill Carnival, as the march united people from all backgrounds, “from pensioners to children”.
Museum worker Charlotte Elliston told Al Jazeera that she also feels unsettled by the far right’s creeping rise.
“You think this would never happen here, and then all of a sudden this might happen,” she said. “You see that it is getting scary.”
Several left-wing politicians joined the demonstration.
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn posted on X that the “problems we face are not caused by migrants or refugees”, arguing they were rooted instead in “an economic system rigged in favour of corporations and billionaires”.
MP Zarah Sultana said on X, “There’s one minority we should be angry at: the billionaires funding division while working class people can’t make ends meet.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski, Dianne Abbott and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham were also among the crowds.
‘Historic demonstration’
The rights group Amnesty UK hailed the “historic demonstration”, saying marchers were “calling for a different vision of society – one which places dignity, compassion and human rights at its heart”.
A separate march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which assembled at Exhibition Road near Hyde Park, converged with the main demonstration during the afternoon.
Eighteen people were arrested outside New Scotland Yard on Saturday after staging a protest in support of Palestine Action, the protest group which remains proscribed under the Terrorism Act despite a High Court ruling in February that the government’s decision to ban it was unlawful.
The march comes amid rising racism as Farage’s Reform party surges in the polls.
Hope Not Hate, an antiracism campaign group, warned earlier in March that the British far right is now “bigger, bolder and more extreme than ever before”.
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