Courts grant ex-Malaysian PM Najib house arrest after $12m royal pardon

What the report says

Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak has been permitted to move from prison to house arrest after a royal pardon and the payment of a 50 million ringgit ($12 million) fine, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters. His lawyer said on Friday that the order had been received and would be delivered to Kajang prison. Najib has been jailed since 2022 over corruption and embezzlement convictions tied to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund, which he helped establish while in office from 2009 to 2018.

The report says the pardon was approved in September by King Sultan Ibrahim, and that Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), reportedly raised the money through crowdfunding after his bank accounts were frozen. Najib denies wrongdoing and argues he was singled out for a wider international fraud scheme linked to 1MDB. The article notes that investigators say about $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund, with more than $1 billion linked to him.

Al Jazeera also reported that the decision may have political consequences in Malaysia, where Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has publicly questioned the pardon process. Separately, Najib remains subject to another major 1MDB-related case in which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $2.5 billion for money laundering and abuse of power; that sentence is under appeal. A court previously rejected his bid for house arrest, saying the seriousness of the crimes outweighed his request.