Malaysia’s appeals court yesterday granted a bid by jailed former Malaysian prime minister 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.
Najib, who was jailed over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, had appealed a lower court decision in July last year 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-Malaysian king al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, agreed in February last year to halve Najib’s jail sentence to six years from 12 and reduced fines imposed on him, sparking public uproar.
Photo: AP
Najib maintained that an “addendum order” on house arrest was issued by the former king alongside the decision, but was never executed by authorities.
In a two to one decision on Monday, the Court of Appeal granted Najib’s appeal to overturn the lower court’s dismissal of his previous request. The case is to return to the High Court for hearing by a different judge.
“Najib was happy ... very relieved that finally they recognized some element of injustice that has been placed against him,” his lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, told a news conference.
In a surprise twist while the court was in session yesterday, an aide to Najib shared with media a letter dated Saturday from the office of al-Sultan Abdullah’s palace, which stated that a royal order granting Najib home detention was “valid and authentic.”
The office of the palace confirmed to Reuters the authenticity of the letter, which marked the first public acknowledgement by the palace of the existence of the royal order, which was issued just before the end of the king’s five-year reign.
Under the constitution, the monarch, which changes every five years under a Malaysia’s unique system of monarchy has authority to take decisions on granting pardons, upon the advice of a pardons board.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS