By Ashley Tang and Rozanna Latiff
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 6 (Reuters) – A Malaysian court has issued an order allowing the transfer to house arrest of jailed former Prime Minister Najib Razak, his lawyer said on Friday, after his party announced it had paid a fine under the terms of a royal pardon.
Najib, prime minister from 2009 to 2018, was found guilty of corruption in relation to the embezzlement of billions of dollars tied to 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a state investment fund he co-founded while in power. He has consistently denied wrongdoing.
“We have that order, and we will be delivering that order to the Kajang prison right now,” Najib’s lawyer Farhan Shafee told reporters, referring to the jail where Najib has been held since 2022.
Najib, 73, could go home on Friday if the process goes according to plan, he added.
Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim agreed in September to allow Najib to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest, in a second royal pardon over his conviction.
CROWDFUNDING TO SEND NAJIB HOME
Najib was required to pay a 50 million ringgit ($12.32 million) fine as a condition of the pardon, which his party, the United Malays National Organisation, said had been done on his behalf.
UMNO used crowdfunding to cover Najib’s fine, which his lawyers said he was unable to pay himself because his bank accounts were frozen.
In the 1MDB scandal, more than $1 billion allegedly made its way into accounts linked to Najib, who says he has been made the scapegoat for a complex, globe-spanning scheme that siphoned away as much as $4.5 billion in funds, according to US investigators.
Najib was also convicted in a separate 1MDB-related case in December last year, for which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $2.8 billion for abuse of power and money laundering.
He has lodged an appeal in that case.
Najib’s lawyers had requested that the jail term and the fines be suspended pending the appeal, citing his declining health and inability to pay the large fine.
But a judge rejected the request last month, saying there were no special circumstances and “the gravity of the offense is a more important public interest consideration”.
DIVISIVE FIGURE
Najib remains a divisive figure in Malaysian politics but is still influential in the once-dominant UMNO, which is part of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s multi-party government.
Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan alliance has strongly opposed leniency towards Najib and his transfer to house arrest could create more tension in the coalition government.
Though the next election is not due to take place until early 2028, Anwar has said he could call a snap poll if rifts deepen.
Tony Pua, a former DAP lawmaker who played a key role in drawing attention to the 1MDB scandal, said Najib was “Malaysia’s biggest crook” and chided UMNO for raising funds for him.
“Instead of using such a large sum of money to help ordinary Malaysians, they chose to ‘free’ Malaysia’s most corrupt,” he said on Facebook.
(Reporting by Ashley Tang, Rozanna Latiff and Mandy Leong; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by David Stanway)
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