(Bloomberg) — A request from the former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak to serve the remainder of his 1MDB-related prison sentence under house arrest has the support of a witness who saw the order allowing him to do so, his lawyer said.
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“We have received an affidavit” from a witness, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, a lawyer for Najib, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. The court will decide on June 5 whether to hear Najib’s request to serve the remainder of his prison sentence under house arrest, he added.
Najib filed a judicial inquiry earlier in April stating that Malaysia’s previous king – from his home state of Pahang – had issued an addendum order allowing his reduced prison sentence to be served under house arrest. This information has not been made public, according to the former prime minister, who was jailed in 2022 for crimes committed while in power.
The royal clemency has already led to resistance Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who came to power in November 2022 on an anti-corruption platform. His commitment to fighting corruption has come under scrutiny after the government dropped 47 criminal charges against a key ally, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
At a Pardons Board meeting on January 29, Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah decided to halve Najib’s prison sentence to six years and reduce his 1MDB-related fines to 50 million ringgit ($10.4 million). It was one of the last acts of the royal ruler, who ended his five-year reign under Malaysia’s rotating monarchy on January 30.
Pardons are granted at the king’s discretion, with the advice of a council of government officials and appointees.
Najib, in his latest request, requested that the court compel the government to verify the existence of the king’s additional order and, upon confirmation, implement it so that he could be transferred to his residence in Kuala Lumpur.
Shafee told reporters outside the courtroom on Wednesday that they had also received affidavits from other witnesses in their favor but were unable to submit them in time.
Najib, who lost power about six years ago, was convicted of abuse of power and money laundering in connection with the troubled sovereign wealth fund. He was accused of transferring 42 million ringgit from 1MDB subsidiary SRC International Sdn. to his personal account between 2014 and 2015.
He still faces dozens of other criminal charges related to the wealth fund, which became the center of a multibillion-dollar scandal that sparked investigations around the world.
(Adds details and comments from Najib’s lawyer from third paragraph)
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