Kajang or Home? High Court decides Najib’s fate today

KUALA LUMPUR – Today marks another significant episode in the nation’s history as the High Court here decides whether former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will be allowed to serve his prison sentence at home or remain incarcerated at Kajang Prison.

High Court judge Alice Loke is scheduled to deliver her decision at 9am on Najib’s application to compel the government and six other parties to implement the alleged Additional Order (Titah Adendum).

Najib, 72, is seeking an order that would allow him to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.

The Pahang-born former leader has been imprisoned for more than three years since Aug 23, 2022, after being sentenced to six years’ jail and fined RM50 million upon conviction for misappropriating RM42 million of SRC International Sdn Bhd funds.

If Najib succeeds in his application, he will be permitted to serve his sentence at his residence. However, if the court dismisses the application, he will remain in Kajang Prison and is due for release on Aug 23, 2028.

On Nov 24, Alice had initially fixed Jan 5 next year to deliver her decision after hearing submissions from Senior Federal Counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, who represents the government and the six other respondents. However, the decision date was subsequently brought forward to today.

At the same proceedings, the court will also rule on a judicial review application filed by Najib’s counsel, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

On Aug 13, the Federal Court in Putrajaya ordered that the matter be remitted to the High Court for a hearing on its merits, after dismissing the Attorney General’s application to appeal against a Court of Appeal decision relating to the alleged additional document.

The Federal Court also rejected the Attorney General’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s ruling that allowed Najib to adduce fresh evidence in support of the existence of the additional document.

The former Pekan MP subsequently applied for an order of mandamus to compel the respondents to respond and to confirm the existence of the alleged additional document dated Jan 29, 2024.

In the application, Najib named the Home Minister, the Prisons Department’s Commissioner General, the Attorney General, the Pardons Board for the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform), the Director-General of the Legal Affairs Division in the Prime Minister’s Department and the Malaysian government as respondents.

The former finance minister also sought an order that, should the additional document be found to exist, all or any of the respondents be directed to implement it immediately. This includes transferring him 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, ruling that four affidavits had been submitted in support of Najib’s claims.

Najib was originally sentenced by the High Court to 12 years’ imprisonment and fined RM210 million. The conviction and sentence were upheld by both the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court after his appeals were dismissed.

He later filed a petition for royal pardon on Sept 2, 2022, which resulted in the Pardons Board reducing his prison term from 12 years to six years and cutting the fine from RM210 million to RM50 million.