Najib, 72, is serving a reduced six-year sentence after receiving partial royal clemency earlier this year in the SRC International case, a former subsidiary linked to the scandal-ridden Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, in which he was convicted of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving 42 million ringgit (US$10.1 million).
The ruling shuts down Najib’s months effort to force the government to recognise what his lawyers claimed was an additional royal decree authorising house arrest.
Najib, who has been in prison since 2022, had his 12-year jail sentence halved last year by a pardons board chaired by the country’s former king.
But he insists the monarch also issued an “addendum order” that converts his sentence to house arrest, and he has been seeking to compel the government to confirm the document’s existence and enforce its contents.
Government officials for months denied knowledge of its existence, though the former king’s office and a federal lawyer this year confirmed the royal document had been issued.
