KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s top court on Monday (Apr 28) granted the Attorney-General’s application to appeal a ruling giving jailed former Prime Minister Najib Razak access to a document he says allows him to serve his remaining prison sentence under house arrest.
Najib, imprisoned for his role in the multi-billion dollar 1MDB scandal, is pursuing a legal bid to compel authorities to confirm the existence of and execute a royal order that he said was issued last year as part of a pardon by the then-king, entitling him to serve the remainder of his sentence at home.
In a unanimous decision, a three-member Federal Court bench ruled that the Attorney-General could appeal a lower court’s January ruling in favour of Najib’s attempt to access the alleged document, with the case to be heard on Jul 1 and 2.
The former premier had his 12-year sentence halved last year in a pardon by then-King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah. Najib said an “addendum order” to the pardon that granted him home detention was ignored by authorities.
The former king’s palace has issued a letter saying the document does exist, but Malaysia’s law ministry said it has no record of it, its home minister has denied knowledge and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has said “we did not hide anything”.
Najib was found guilty in 2020 of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power for illegally receiving funds misappropriated from a unit of state investor 1Malaysia Development Berhad. He is on trial for corruption in several other 1MDB-linked cases and denies wrongdoing.
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