A Malaysian court grants former Prime Minister Najib access to a house arrest warrant Court Affairs

The three members of the bench decided 2-1 to approve Najib Razak’s request to use this law to oppose his case at the High Court.

Malaysia’s appeals court has allowed jailed former prime minister Najib Razak to see a document it says should allow him to serve his sentence at home, a rare move for a disgraced former leader at the heart of the country’s biggest scandal.

A three-member bench ruled 2-1 on Monday to approve Najib’s application to use the law to argue his case at the High Court.

“Because there is no challenge [of the existence of the decree]there are no reasons why this order was not followed,” said Mohammad Firuz Jaffril, one of the three judges of the Court of Appeal.

The 71-year-old Najib, who was jailed for the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, appealed a lower court ruling last July that rejected his request to confirm the presence and execution of a royal order that he said allowed him to be placed under house arrest.

Malaysia’s parole board, then headed by then-king Al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, agreed in February last year to reduce Najib’s sentence to six years from 12 and reduce the fine he had paid, causing a public uproar.

But Najib maintained that the “additional order” regarding house arrest was issued by the former king and decree and was not issued by the authorities.

After Monday’s court ruling, Malaysia’s interior minister said the Prisons Department had not received notice that Najib might be placed under house arrest last year.

The Ministry of Interior has not received any communication on this matter from the former king of Malaysia, who is the chairman of the amnesty board, said minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail in a press conference. “The government will fully implement the royal orders if they are accepted,” he said.

According to the constitution, the king, who changes every five years under Malaysia’s unique monarchy system, has the power to make decisions about granting pardons, on the advice of the pardon board.

After Monday’s verdict, “Najib was happy,” his lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said at a press conference. “[He is] they are very relieved that they finally saw some aspect of the injustice that was done to them.”

Najib was found guilty in 2020 of breach of trust and abuse of power for receiving misappropriated funds from state fund unit 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

Najib is still on trial for corruption in other cases linked to 1MDB. He has always denied wrongdoing.

Malaysian and United States investigators estimate that $4.5bn was stolen from 1MDB and more than $1bn transferred to accounts linked to Najib.