The former PM’s antics to fight for the luxury of serving his sentence in the comfort of his house involve all sorts of mischief
PUTRAJAYA was more crowded than usual last Monday, and we had to jostle for a table even though it was after 10am and the civil servants were back at their desks.
We were four, having agreed to meet Azli for mid-morning drinks at the canteen on the second floor of the National Registration Department building.
Azli was wearing a red t-shirt with a smiling Najib Razak on it. At the top, the message was Free Najib.
“I can’t stay very long, I’m at the rally across the road,” he said, as if we couldn’t see his t-shirt and the Najib scarf on his shoulders.
“Yes and…Hidup Najib!” we greeted Azli.
He beamed but also let us know that he knew we were being sarcastic.
All of us go back so far that we were beyond differences, such as whether Najib was a genius criminal mind or a bumbling prime minister (PM) who signed off millions of state money to Jho Low.
“Man, I saw the buses; why are there so many people? What do you all want?” I asked.
“We are fighting for justice and fairness, bosku is innocent and should be free,” he said.
We asked Azli whether he had followed Najib’s trial over the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) case, as well as the couple of years of appeals that finally got him sentenced to 12 years in jail.
“Najib was the best PM, we want him back.
“Come with me to the rally, it will be fun,” Azli said
“Azli sit down and think for a minute.
“You’re not fighting for justice. You’re demonstrating in the streets to fight for Najib’s right to shower in his own house. Nothing more,” we said.
Many ordinary Malaysians of sane mind cheered with relief when, after a long-drawn court case, Najib was finally sent to prison for his part in the billions of ringgit theft from the 1MDB fund in 2022.
He had just lost the last of his endless bids to review a 12-year prison sentence meted out in 2020.
Since then, his well-paid legal team and friends have explored every hole in the law to get Najib off the hook completely or, failing that, to get him to serve his term to the standards to which he is accustomed.
Last year, he was awarded a relief by the previous King who cut his sentence by half to six years and reduced his fine to half as well.
But Najib is now contesting that he should serve that reduced sentence in a house because the previous King had added a note to his partial pardon.
Najib scored a win last Monday when the court agreed that the High Court should recognise a letter that said the previous King wanted Najib to spend his halved sentence in the comfort of a house instead of a ratty prison accommodation.
Najib’s plight was self-inflicted, no matter how many times he said he was unaware that billions were being stolen from under his nose.
One of the judges, in presenting their findings on Najib’s appeal to review his sentence, said the facts before them leave them with no other conclusion that “Najib was the author of his fortunes.”
Investigators have said some US$4.5 billion (RM20.24 billion) was stolen from 1MDB — co-founded by Najib during his first year as PM in 2009 — and that more than US$1 billion went to accounts linked to Najib.
Jho Low and others have sucked 1MDB funds and used the money to buy luxury assets and real estate, a Picasso painting, a private jet, a superyacht, hotels, jewellery and to finance the 2013 Hollywood film “The Wolf of Wall Street” according to investigation papers.
His antics to fight for the luxury of serving a sentence in the comfort of his house has used all sorts of mischief.
The existence, or not, of that note or addendum had created an “Addendum Gate” as everyone, from the PM down, couldn’t get their act together to confirm or deny that the previous King had indeed given such a letter to the Pardons Board.
We declined Azli’s offer. It was too much like deja vu.
We declined partly because giving luxury to a convicted criminal was not a worthy cause.
Also, we can’t see ourselves wearing a t-shirt with Najib’s face on it.
- ZB Othman is an editor of The Malaysian Reserve.
- This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition
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