KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Jailed former Malaysian leader Najib Razak yesterday introduced new evidence to bolster a legal appeal for him to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest.
The former prime minister, already serving a six-year jail term for corruption related to the plunder of sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, faces several other cases linked to the financial scandal that led to his defeat in 2018 elections.
Separately, Najib is challenging the High Court’s refusal to hear his request for house arrest, asking yesterday for the Court of Appeal to reverse the decision.
His review request centres on the purported existence of an order by the former king granting him permission to serve the rest of his sentence at home.
At yesterday’s hearing, lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah informed the three-judge appeals court that Najib’s legal team had filed new evidence to support their application.
While Shafee did not disclose full details when speaking to reporters outside post-hearing, he said the additional evidence presented yesterday “is to prove conclusively” that the order of the former king exists.
The High Court had ruled in July that affidavits supporting Najib’s claim were inadmissible as evidence because they were hearsay.
The supposed document has not been made public and there has been no comment from the former king, whose term in the largely ceremonial role ended in January.
But Shafee reaffirmed that the order was for Najib “to serve (the) balance of his imprisonment sentence in the house”, adding that the public “will be quite surprised who the king ordered to carry out that” decree. Senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan said government lawyers needed time to go through the new evidence.
“We may or may not reply to the affidavit,” he said in court.
“For now we need to verify the documents exhibited.” The appeals court adjourned the hearing, with the next session to be held at an unspecified date. If the appeals court rules in Najib’s favour, the case will go back to the High Court, according to legal experts.
