KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia’s King has granted former Prime Minister Najib Razak conditional clemency, allowing him to serve the remainder of his current prison sentence under house arrest.
Najib will remain under the sentence until Aug. 23, 2028, but he will no longer have to serve that portion of the term in prison. He must pay a 50 million ringgit ($12 million) fine and comply with conditions attached to the royal pardon.
The decision was made Friday by the Federal Territories Pardons Board and announced by Malaysia’s Legal Affairs Department. The department did not disclose all of the conditions, but said the pardon could be forfeited if Najib fails to comply with them.
The decision came about a week after the Pardons Board postponed consideration of Najib’s latest clemency application. The board then met again Friday and approved the house-arrest arrangement.
Najib’s current sentence
Najib, 73, has been in prison since August 2022 after Malaysia’s Federal Court upheld his conviction in a case involving 42 million ringgit transferred from SRC International, a former unit of the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
He was originally sentenced in 2020 to 12 years in prison and fined 210 million ringgit after being convicted of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering.
In January 2024, the Pardons Board reduced his sentence to six years and lowered the fine to 50 million ringgit. His current sentence is due to end on Aug. 23, 2028.
Friday’s decision changes where Najib serves that remaining sentence. It does not overturn his conviction.
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A different outcome from the earlier house-arrest dispute
The new decision is separate from an earlier dispute over whether Najib had already been granted permission to serve his sentence at home.
After receiving the 2024 sentence reduction, Najib claimed that the King had also issued a separate order allowing him to serve the sentence under house arrest.
That alleged order became the subject of court proceedings. In December 2025, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that it could not be enforced because the house-arrest arrangement had not been discussed or decided upon during the Pardons Board meeting that produced Najib’s sentence reduction.
Najib withdrew his appeal against that ruling in April 2026.
Friday’s decision followed a new meeting of the Pardons Board chaired by Malaysia’s current King, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar. The house-arrest arrangement therefore comes from a new clemency decision rather than the disputed 2024 order.
A separate 1MDB case remains
Najib also faces another prison sentence from a separate case connected to the wider 1MDB scandal.
In December 2025, the Kuala Lumpur High Court convicted him on additional charges involving more than $700 million allegedly transferred into accounts linked to him. He received another 15-year prison sentence and was fined 11.4 billion ringgit.
Najib has appealed that conviction.
Friday’s clemency decision concerns his existing sentence. It does not determine the outcome of his appeal in the separate case.
The 1MDB scandal
Najib was Malaysia’s prime minister from 2009 to 2018 and helped establish 1MDB, a state investment fund that later became the focus of a multibillion-dollar international investigation.
U.S. investigators have said at least $4.5 billion was misappropriated from the fund and moved through accounts and transactions in several countries. Najib has denied wrongdoing and has said he was made a scapegoat in the scandal.
The controversy surrounding 1MDB contributed to the defeat of Najib’s governing coalition in Malaysia’s 2018 general election.
Najib has remained an important figure within the United Malays National Organisation, which is part of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s governing coalition.
What the royal decision changes
The immediate effect of Friday’s decision is straightforward: Najib can serve the remainder of his current sentence at home instead of in prison, subject to the conditions of the royal clemency.
His conviction remains in place, and the separate 15-year sentence from the later 1MDB case remains subject to his appeal.
The decision therefore changes the conditions under which Najib serves his existing sentence without resolving the separate legal proceedings surrounding him.
Reporting Credit: Malaysia Legal Affairs Department — announcement of the conditional royal pardon and house-arrest terms; Federal Territories Pardons Board — clemency decision; Malaysian courts — Najib’s convictions, sentences and related house-arrest proceedings.
