Malaysia’s top court has cleared the way for jailed former Prime Minister Najib Razak to seek access to a royal document that he says would allow him to serve the remainder of his sentence at home.
The 72-year-old, who has been imprisoned since August 2022 for his role in the multi-billion-dollar 1MDB scandal, claims that an order permitting house arrest was issued last year as an addendum to a royal pardon that halved his 12-year prison sentence.
In January, the Court of Appeal overturned an earlier High Court ruling dismissing Najib’s request that the court confirm the existence of the royal order, and, if discovered, to execute it. The Attorney-General’s Chambers subsequently said that it would challenge the ruling at the Federal Court, on the basis that Najib’s case involved significant questions of public interest and so needed to be examined by the country’s top court.
In a unanimous ruling handed down this morning, the three-member Federal Court bench accepted the existence of the addendum, even though it was not in a position to determine if it was authentic or truly issued as part of the royal pardon.
“We remit the case to the High Court for the hearing of the substantive judicial review proceedings before a new judge,” Federal Court judge Zabariah Mohd Yusof said, as per Reuters. Dozens of supporters of Najib gathered outside the court as the ruling was handed down, chanting “Free Bossku” – the word means “my boss” in Malay – in reference to the former leader.
The ruling is the latest twist in the legal campaign that Najib has waged since 2020, when he was found 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 1MDB. In August 2022, he lost his final appeal against his conviction and began his 12-year sentence at Kajang prison in Selangor. Professing his innocence, Najib has since waged a legal and political campaign aimed first at overturning the sentence, and when that did not succeed, at seeking to water it down.
Speculation about the existence of a “secret” addendum permitting Najib to serve his sentence under house arrest has been the subject of considerable public speculation in Malaysia since the granting of the royal pardon in January 2024. Najib’s legal team claims that the addendum has been deliberately ignored or concealed by the authorities. During the Court of Appeal hearings, it produced a letter from the Royal House of Pahang confirming the existence of the addendum part of the royal pardon. The Royal House of Pahang later confirmed to the media that the letter was “valid and authentic.”
Despite this, multiple authorities within Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration, including the Pardons Board and the home, law, and communications ministries, have all denied any knowledge of the document. Earlier this year, Anwar said that “nothing was hidden.”
Following today’s ruling, Najib will now no doubt use all the legal resources at his disposal to convince the High Court that the addendum exists, is authentic, and allows him to be relocated to house arrest. From there, he could then begin mounting what five years ago would have seemed like a most unlikely political comeback. Najib still faces another 1MDB-related case involving 21 charges of money laundering and four charges of abuse of power. According to Reuters, closing arguments in this case are due to take place in October.
