By Danial Azhar
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -A Malaysian court on Monday granted jailed ex-premier Najib Razak’s bid to access a royal document that should allow him to serve his sentence at home, in a rare win for the disgraced former leader at the heart of the country’s biggest scandal.
Najib, imprisoned for his role in a multibillion-dollar fraud at state fund 1MDB, had his 12-year sentence halved last year in a pardon by then-King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, but the former premier insists the monarch also grants him house arrest in an “addendum order” that he says authorities ignored.
Malaysia’s government has not confirmed the existence of the addendum order.
The Court of Appeal on Monday ruled that a lower court dismissal of Najib’s request to confirm the document’s existence be overturned and sent back to the High Court to be heard by a different judge.
“Thank God. Today, we take one step forward,” Najib said, according to his Facebook page.
More than 1,000 of his supporters were gathered outside the court, chanting “Free Najib” and holding signs with the words “Solidarity with Najib Razak”.
“Finally they recognised some element of injustice that has been placed against him,” his lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told a press conference.
The ruling will be a big boon for Najib, whose fortunes changed dramatically after a surprise election defeat in 2018 amid voters’ fury over his alleged role in the loss of billions of dollars from 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
Malaysian and U.S. investigators estimate $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB, and more than $1 billion channelled to accounts linked to Najib, who was premier for nine years and helped start the fund. He has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Najib was found guilty in 2020 of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power for illegally receiving funds misappropriated from a 1MDB unit. He is on trial for corruption in several other 1MDB-linked cases.
‘VALID AND AUTHENTIC’
According to Malaysia’s constitution, the monarch has authority to take decisions on pardons, upon the advice of a pardons board. Under Malaysia’s unique system of rotating monarchy, the king changes every five years.
In a dramatic twist, while the court was in session on Monday, an aide to Najib shared with media a letter dated Jan. 4 from Al-Sultan Abdullah’s palace, confirming there was a royal order last year granting Najib home detention that was “valid and authentic”.
The letter, which the office of the palace confirmed to Reuters was authentic, marks the first public acknowledgement that an addendum order had been issued prior to the end of the king’s reign last year.
The office of the attorney-general, who is a member of the pardons board chaired by the monarch, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter from the former king’s palace.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Malaysia’s home minister said his ministry had received no communication from the former king and the prisons department was informed only of Najib’s sentence reduction, with no notice of house arrest.
“How can we execute an order when an order was never received?” minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail told a press conference.
“The government will fully implement royal orders if received,” he said.
(Reporting by Danial Azhar; additional reporting by Ashley Tang and Hasnoor Hussain; Editing by Martin Petty and Bernadette Baum)
