PETALING JAYA: Apart from the ascension of a new King, Malaysians have been glued to their newsfeeds this week wondering whether Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the first Malaysian prime minister to have ever been jailed, will get a royal pardon.
After days of speculative news reports, retractions of those reports and Cabinet ministers deflecting on the question, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories) Dr Zaliha Mustafa said the answer could be known by the end of this week.
“God willing,” she told reporters yesterday after she was asked for the second time this week about the board’s decision.
“Let’s wait for a statement. Just wait and be patient.”
Dr Zaliha sits on the Pardons Board for the Federal Territories, which hears applications for cases that were decided in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan.
Najib’s first case involving funds from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) was heard in Kuala Lumpur.
Although Dr Zaliha was the first person to have set tongues wagging on Tuesday when she confirmed that the Pardons Board had met the day before, the question has been at the back of people’s minds.
This is since the Yang di-Pertuan Agong heads the Federal Territories Pardons Board, and this week’s meeting was the last for outgoing monarch Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah, and among the last of His Majesty’s official duties.
Also, it has been widely reported that lawyers for Najib, currently serving a 12-year jail term for abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering, had applied for a royal pardon days after he started his sentence in September 2022.
So when Dr Zaliha confirmed to reporters on Jan 30 that the board had met, it started a frenzy of speculation as to what had been decided for Najib.
Dr Zaliha did not disclose whether Najib’s pardon was discussed and told reporters to wait for an “official statement from the board itself”.
A news portal dropped a bomb when it claimed that Najib had received a full pardon on the same day as Dr Zaliha’s statement.
That article, which quoted sources, was picked up by other news outlets but several hours later, the original story was retracted and its publisher issued an apology.
However, the next day, other news outlets, including one from Singapore, began reporting that Najib’s sentence had been cut by half to six years.
Quoting senior government sources, the article claimed that Najib could be out by August 2026 after serving two-thirds of his sentence, and for good behaviour.The next day on Jan 31, two ministers refused to comment on the latest rumours and how they felt about the prospects of Najib’s sentence being reduced.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the Cabinet had only briefly discussed the issue but stressed that the decision was not under its jurisdiction.At a separate press conference, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil told the media not to jump the gun on the board’s decision and to wait for an official statement.
He added that he met with the Singaporean news portal but stressed that he was not one of the sources it had cited.
Najib is currently serving a 12-year sentence after being found guilty of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering in relation to RM42mil that had been siphoned from SRC International, a former 1MBD subsidiary. He was also fined RM210mil.
The former prime minister is also currently on trial to answer charges of abuse of power that allegedly brought him financial benefit to the tune of RM2.28bil, believed to have been 1MDB funds.
