The three-member chamber rules 2-1, upholding Najib Razak’s appeal to use the decree to argue his case before the Supreme Court.
Malaysia’s Court of Appeal has granted a request by jailed former prime minister Najib Razak to see a document he said should allow him to serve his sentence at home. This is a rare victory for a disgraced former leader who is at the center of the country’s biggest scandal.
A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 on Monday, upholding Najib’s appeal to use the decree to argue his case before the Supreme Court.
“Given the fact that there is no challenge (to the existence of the decree), there is no justification for the order not being complied with,” said Mohamad Firuz Jaffril, one of the appeal court’s three judges.
The 71-year-old Najib, jailed over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, appealed last July against a lower court decision that overturned his attempt to confirm the existence and carry out a royal order that he said would have made him eligible for the royal order entitled to house arrest was rejected.
The Malaysian Pardon Board, chaired by then-King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, agreed in February last year to halve Najib’s prison sentence from 12 to six years and reduce the fines imposed on him, sparking public uproar.
However, Najib claimed that the former king issued a “supplementary order” to house arrest along with the decision and that the authorities never implemented it.
After Monday’s court ruling, Malaysia’s interior minister said the prison authority had not received any notification of Najib’s possible home detention in the past year.
The Interior Ministry has not received any communication on the issue from Malaysia’s former king, who chaired the pardon committee, Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said at a news conference. “The government will fully implement royal orders if they are received,” he said.
Under the constitution, the monarch, who rotates every five years under Malaysia’s unique monarchy system, has the power to make decisions on granting pardons on the advice of the Pardon Board.
After Monday’s verdict, “Najib is happy,” his lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said at a news conference. “(He is) very relieved that they finally recognized some level of injustice that was done to him.”
Najib was found guilty in 2020 of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power for illegally receiving funds embezzled from a unit of sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
Najib remains on trial for corruption in several other cases related to 1MDB. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Malaysian and US investigators estimate that $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB and more than $1 billion was funneled to accounts linked to Najib.
