Malaysia ex-PM Najib Razak set for house arrest after party pays fine to leave jail

"We have that order, and we will be delivering that order to the Kajang prison ⁠right now," Najib's lawyer Farhan Shafee, referring to the jail where Najib has been held since 2022. Najib, 73, could ​go home on Friday if the process goes, he added.

Malaysia's King Sultan Ibrahim agreed in September to allow Najib ​to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest, in a second royal pardon over his conviction. Crowdfunding to send Najib home.

Najib was required to pay a 50 million ringgit ($12.32 million) fine as a condition of the pardon, which his party, the United Malays National Organisation, said had been done on ​his behalf. UMNO used crowdfunding to cover Najib's fine, which his lawyers said he was unable to pay himself because his bank accounts were frozen.

In ​the 1MDB scandal, more than $1 billion allegedly made its way into accounts linked to Najib, who says he has been made the scapegoat for ‌a complex, ⁠globe-spanning scheme that siphoned away as much as $4.5 billion in funds,.

Najib was also convicted in a separate 1MDB-related case in December last year, for which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $2.8 billion for abuse of power and money laundering. Read:Pakistan, Malaysia reaffirm defence ties as joint counter-terrorism exercise Harimau Markhor-IV concludes.

He has lodged an appeal in that case. Najib's lawyers had requested that the jail term and the fines be suspended pending the ​appeal, citing his declining health and ​inability to pay the large fine.

But ⁠a judge rejected the request last month, saying there were no special circumstances and "the gravity of the offence is a more important public interest consideration". Divisive figure. Najib remains a divisive figure in Malaysian politics but is still ​influential in the once-dominant UMNO, which is part of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's multi-party government.

Anwar's Pakatan ​Harapan alliance has ⁠strongly opposed leniency towards Najib and his transfer to house arrest could create more tension in the coalition government. Though the next election is not due to take place until early 2028, Anwar has said he could call a snap poll if rifts deepen.

Tony Pua, a former DAP ⁠lawmaker who ​played a key role in drawing attention to the 1MDB scandal, said Najib ​was "Malaysia's biggest crook" and chided UMNO for raising funds for him. "Instead of using such a large sum of money to help ordinary Malaysians, they chose to 'free' Malaysia's ​most corrupt," he said on Facebook.