KUALA LUMPUR – The high court will decide on July 3 whether to grant Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s leave application to compel the government and the Pardons Board to produce the royal addendum order allowing him to serve the remainder of his jail sentence at home.
Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan confirmed the court’s decision following today’s proceedings.
Shafee told reporters that judge Datuk Amarjeet Singh accepted affidavits from both Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail as well as Najib.
Shafee also said bits of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s speech delivered at the PKR 25th anniversary convention in April were included in Najib’s affidavit.
“Clearly, what the prime minister said on that date was (about) the addendum and cannot be anything else. So it is included (in Najib’s affidavit) to say that the addendum order does exist.
“But there are many layers to this ‘story’. To me, public functionaries, including the ministers, Prison Department director-general, and home minister himself, should not have ‘hide’ the addendum order,” Shafee said.
He added that he had only received a copy of Najib’s main pardon order recently.
“I’ve been asking for these documents relentlessly from the parties named in this suit. And I’ve never gotten any answers… Until ten days ago, they finally gave me the main order. But just a copy of it.”
The 70-year-old former prime minister filed the leave application on April 1, seeking to compel the government to confirm the existence of the addendum order.
Najib named the home minister, the commissioner-general of prisons, the attorney-general, the Federal Territories Pardons Board, the government, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (law and institutional reform), and the director-general of the legal affairs division in the Prime Minister’s Department as respondents.
Najib, currently serving a sentence for corruption in the SRC International case, has requested the respondents to confirm the addendum order’s existence.
If the order exists, he seeks its execution, the provision of original copies, and any other relief the court deems appropriate.
The Pardons Board halved his prison sentence from 12 years to six and reduced his fine from RM210 million to RM50 million during its meeting on January 29. – June 5, 2024