KUALA LUMPUR: Former Malaysian prime Minister Najib Razak’s legal bid for “house arrest” saw a new twist on Thursday (Dec 5) with an attempt to introduce fresh evidence.
The hearing that was slated to begin on Thursday was adjourned after government lawyers said that they needed time to go through an affidavit that was handed to them on Tuesday.
The affidavit was filed by Najib’s son Nizar Najib, and said that the Pahang sultan had told him about the existence of a royal addendum for the former premier to serve the remainder of his six-year jail sentence under house arrest.
The former king had halved Najib’s 12-year jail term for corruption and cut his RM210 million (US$47 million) fine to RM50 million as one of his last official tasks before stepping down on Jan 30 this year.
One of the former premier’s lawyers Shafee Abdullah later told reporters that Mr Nizar received a copy of the addendum from the Pahang palace on Monday and that he had filed an affidavit on this a day later.
“The contents (of the document) are exactly what we have known before, that Najib is to serve his balance of the imprisonment sentence in the house, which means house imprisonment. And that was signed on Jan 29 (2024), same time as the main order,” he said.
“So, the additional and fresh evidence is to prove conclusively that it exists,” he added.
Mr Shafee however declined to disclose the contents of the document. He requested that the appeals court issue a protective order to preserve the confidentiality of the additional evidence due to its sensitive nature.
The High Court had previously dismissed Najib’s legal bid for the government to produce an addendum order reportedly issued by Al-Sultan Abdullah, the ex-King, that allows Najib to serve the remainder of his reduced six-year sentence at home.
Najib, 71, who is currently serving his sentence at Kajang prison in the state of Selangor then appealed the decision. The Court of Appeal was set to hear the appeal.
The High Court ruled in July that affidavits supporting Najib’s claim were inadmissible as evidence because they were hearsay.
Judge Amarjeet Singh had described affidavits filed by Malaysia’s deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and another high-ranking politician from Najib’s party saying they had seen a copy of the royal order as hearsay and said the government had no legal duty to respond to the application.
The alleged document has not been made public and there has been no comment from the former king.
