Malaysia court grants jailed ex-PM Najib access to house arrest decree

Three-member bench rules 2-1 to grant Najib Razak’s appeal to use the decree to argue his case before the High Court.

Malaysia’s appeals court has granted a bid by jailed ex-premier Najib Razak to see a document he said should allow him to serve his sentence at home, in a rare win for a disgraced former leader at the heart of the country’s biggest scandal.

A three-member bench ruled 2-1 on Monday to grant Najib’s appeal to use the decree to argue his case before the High Court.

“Given the fact that there is no challenge [of the existence of the decree], there is no justification that the order has not been complied with,” said Mohamad Firuz Jaffril, one of the three Court of Appeal judges.

The 71-year-old Najib, who was jailed over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, had appealed a lower court decision last July that dismissed his bid to confirm the existence of and execute a royal order that he said entitled him to house arrest.

Malaysia’s pardons board, at the time chaired by then-King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, agreed in February last year to halve Najib’s jail sentence to six years from 12 and reduce fines imposed on him, prompting public uproar.