KUALA LUMPUR – Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will appeal against the High Court’s decision rejecting his application to compel the government to implement an Addendum Order that would allow him to serve the remainder of his prison sentence under house arrest.
His lawyer, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said this after High Court judge Alice Loke Yee Ching dismissed Najib’s judicial review application on Monday.
Najib, 72, has been incarcerated at Kajang prison since Aug 23, 2022 after being convicted of misappropriating RM42 million belonging to SRC International Sdn Bhd.
He has served more than three years of his sentence.
Had the application succeeded, the former Umno president would have been allowed to complete his sentence at his residence. However, following the court’s decision, he remains at the Kajang prison and is scheduled for release on Aug 23, 2028.
Despite the ruling, both the defence and the government retained the right to appeal the decision at the Court of Appeal.
On Nov 24, Loke had fixed Jan 5 next year to deliver her decision after hearing submissions from Senior Federal Counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, who represented the government and six other respondents.
The decision date was later brought forward to Dec 22, ahead of the Christmas public holiday.
The case stems from Najib’s judicial review application, which was returned to the High Court by the Federal Court on Aug 13 for a hearing on its merits after the Attorney General failed in an attempt to appeal against a Court of Appeal decision involving an additional document.
The Federal Court had also dismissed the Attorney General’s appeal against a ruling that allowed Najib to adduce new evidence to support the existence of the additional document.
Najib later applied for an order of mandamus to compel the respondents to confirm the existence of the additional document dated Jan 29, 2024 and to act on it should it exist.
The respondents named in the application include the Home Minister, the Commissioner General of Prisons, the Attorney General, the Pardons Board for the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department for Law and Institutional Reform, the Director General of the Legal Affairs Division in the Prime Minister’s Department and the Government of Malaysia.
Among the reliefs sought was an order for Najib to be transferred from Kajang prison to his residence in the capital to serve the remainder of his sentence.
On July 3, 2024, High Court judge Datuk Amarjeet Singh dismissed Najib’s application for leave to commence judicial review, after considering four affidavits submitted in support of his claim.
Najib was originally sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and fined RM210 million, a ruling that was upheld by both the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court.
Following a royal pardon petition filed on Sept 2, 2022, the Pardons Board reduced his prison sentence to six years and lowered the fine to RM50 million.