‘Highly likely’ jailed Najib Razak will get royal pardon, says Mahathir Mohamad

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s veteran two-time leader Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday that disgraced former premier Najib Razak, who he helped bring down, was likely to win a royal pardon and be freed from a 12-year jail sentence for graft that he began this week.

Mahathir, whose historic election victory in 2018 triggered Najib’s downfall, said delays in various trials related to the multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) would result in justice being denied.

The palace of King Al-Sultan Abdullah, which received a petition for a pardon from Najib loyalists a day earlier, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mahathir’s remark.

On Tuesday, the country’s top court rejected Najib’s final appeal against a 2020 conviction by a lower court, and upheld the 12-year jail sentence and a 210 million ringgit ($46.88 million) fine for illegally receiving $10 million from a unit of 1MDB.

“For Najib, it is highly likely that he will be pardoned after being imprisoned,” the 97-year-old Mahathir said in a statement. He did not elaborate.

Najib is believed to be close to some of Malaysia’s royals, and in May, Najib’s social media posts showed him attending Eid celebrations with the king.

But, there has been no indication so far on how the palace would respond to any pardon application by Najib, who held power for nine years until 2018.

Nor has there been any sign yet of how Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob would regard a pardon for his old party leader, as he seeks to rehabilitate the image of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

Having been sent to jail on Tuesday after losing the appeal in one of the smaller cases related to the siphoning off of money from the state fund he co-founded in 2009, Najib was back in court on Thursday for a hearing in the largest case.

He was brought from the Kajang prison complex southeast of the capital to the Kuala Lumpur high court in a black police car under heavy security and was taken to the courtroom through a private entrance.

At the end of the day’s hearing, Najib — in a dark suit and tie — waved to reporters from the police car on his way back to Kajang. He did not comment, but an aide to the former premier said he was “doing OK.”

In a social media post, Najib’s daughter Nooryana Najwa said he had been provided with basic necessities in prison, and “was getting used to his new routine.”