Malaysia’s jailed former Prime Minister Najib Razak is one step closer to serving the remainder of his corruption sentence under house arrest, after an appeals court accepted his bid to see a document he claims should permit him to serve the sentence at home.
In February of last year, Malaysia’s Pardons Board granted Najib a royal pardon halving his 12-year prison sentence and sharply reducing the hefty fine that he was handed for his role in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB corruption scandal. Najib’s legal team then filed a petition seeking for the former leader to serve his remaining term under house arrest, claiming that the order was made in an unpublished addendum to the royal pardon.
In a two to one decision yesterday, the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya overturned a ruling handed down by the High Court in July, which dismissed Najib’s previous request that the court confirm the existence of and execute the royal order.
During yesterday’s court hearing, an aide to Najib shared with the media a letter from the office of Sultan Abdullah of Pahang, the former king, to Najib’s son, confirming the existence of the order. The Royal House of Pahang later confirmed to the media that the January 4 letter is “valid and authentic.” This is the first time that Sultan Abdullah’s office has confirmed the existence of the order, which the government still claims to have no knowledge.
“The fact that there is no rebuttal evidence from the respondents challenging the [decree’s] existence … is rather compelling,” judges ruled. “This court cannot simply ignore the existence of the order.”
Najib’s appeal will now return to the High Court for a hearing by a different judge. Speaking to reporters after the verdict was handed down, Najib’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said that his client was “happy” and “very relieved that finally they recognized some element of injustice that has been placed against him,” Reuters reported.
In 2020, a court found Najib guilty of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust, and money laundering for illegally receiving around $10 million from SRC International, a former unit of the state investment fund 1MDB. In August 2022, Najib lost his final appeal in the case and began his 12-year sentence at Kajang prison in Selangor.
Since then, asserting his innocence, he has pursued every possible legal and political avenue of appeal. A year ago, he succeeded in halving his prison sentence via a royal pardon, one of the last official acts of Malaysia’s king Sultan Abdullah of Pahang, Najib’s home state, before the country’s rotating kingship passed to Johor’s Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar.
In October, Najib issued a formal apology for his mishandling of the multibillion-dollar 1MDB corruption scandal, expressing “regret” at what happened on his watch but maintaining his innocence. “Being held legally responsible for things I did not initiate or knowingly enable is unfair to me and I hope and pray that the judicial process will, in the end, prove my innocence,” he wrote.
Yesterday’s ruling suggests that Najib’s legal and political campaign is beginning to bear fruit. Indeed, for many critical observers of Malaysian politics, there is a depressing inevitability to Najib being permitted to serve his sentence under house arrest. If last year’s royal pardon did not raise enough question marks about the double standards in the Malaysian legal system – many assailed the fact that the Pardons Board granted Najib an “early hearing” of his pardon request, even as many other less privileged convicts have waited for years with a hearing from the Board – any decision allowing him to serve his sentence at home would demonstrate ever more starkly the differential privileges that accrue to those with wealth and political power.
Even if he does not succeed in securing a transfer to house arrest, Najib will become eligible for parole after two-thirds of his new sentence has elapsed, which could mean that he walks free as early as August 2026, well in time for Malaysia’s next general election. Najib remains on trial for corruption in several other 1MDB-linked cases.