Najib verdict and Pardons Board decision (2022-2024)

what happened

Najib Razak's imprisonment began with one case, and not the largest one. The SRC International prosecution concerned RM42 million that moved from a former 1MDB subsidiary, and in July 2020 the High Court convicted him on seven charges and imposed 12 years' jail and a RM210 million fine. On 23 August 2022 a five-member Federal Court bench chaired by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat dismissed his final appeal and upheld both the conviction and the sentence, and he began serving it that day. A later attempt to reopen the case failed: on 31 March 2023 a review panel refused his application by a 4-1 majority, with the Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak dissenting.

It matters for reading the rest of this page that the SRC case is not the 1MDB case. The main 1MDB trial concerned RM2.3 billion and ran separately for years. Najib was ordered to enter his defence in October 2024, his defence case ran from December 2024 to May 2025, and on 26 December 2025 Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah convicted him on all 25 charges and imposed a further 15 years to run after his existing term. The money orders in that judgment are two: a fine of RM11.39 billion on the abuse-of-power charges, set at five times the gratification in them, and a separate order to recover RM2.08 billion on the money-laundering charges, each with its own default prison term if unpaid — together the roughly RM13 billion later reporting refers to. He filed an appeal four days later, so that conviction is not final. That appeal was still on foot in mid-2026: the trial judge's written grounds came out in June 2026, Najib's lawyers had applied in May to put fresh evidence before the Court of Appeal, and no hearing dates had been fixed.

The February 2024 Pardons Board decision applied only to the SRC sentence. The Federal Territories Pardons Board met on 29 January 2024 chaired by the then Yang di-Pertuan Agong, and the outcome was announced on 2 February through the Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister's Department. What was granted was a reduction rather than a pardon: the prison term halved to six years, the fine cut to RM50 million, and an early release date of 23 August 2028 conditional on that fine being paid, or 23 August 2029 if it is not. The conviction stood. No reasons were published, and the Board treats its deliberations as confidential.

That silence is why so much of the argument around the decision sits in the contested column rather than the established one. The Malaysian Bar publicly questioned the decision and its president later said the Bar felt duty-bound to seek a review; a former MACC officer quoted by NST was sharply critical; Anwar Ibrahim said the decision belonged to the Board alone, while acknowledging he had ensured the application reached it and denying it was expedited. Mukhriz Mahathir argued the prime minister should not shelter behind the Board's authority, and an Asialink analysis read the partial pardon in terms of coalition politics. None of these accounts can be checked against published reasons.

In court the argument has been narrower and more technical, and it is worth setting out both sides because a reader can otherwise be left with only the criticism. The Bar's legal position is that Article 40(1A), added to the Constitution in 1994, obliges the Agong to accept and act on the Pardons Board's advice, so the decision that matters is the Board's and can be tested like any other administrative decision — on which footing the Bar pleaded unequal treatment under Article 8 and irrationality. The Attorney General's Chambers and Najib's counsel say the advice and the decision are a single process under Article 42, that the prerogative of mercy is a personal discretion of the Agong, and that a court cannot enter it at all. In November 2024 the High Court agreed with them and refused the Bar leave even to argue the merits; the Court of Appeal heard the Bar's appeal on 31 July 2026 and reserved judgment. On the political side, the defence of the decision has been institutional rather than particular: Anwar asked that the Board's decision be respected as the Board's to make, and the AGC has said that rulings in this area do not diminish the Agong's power to pardon. No one in government has argued publicly that Najib's petition had a merit that other petitions lacked — which is unsurprising, since the reasons were never published, but it does mean the record contains no positive case for this decision on its facts.

The separate dispute over a claimed royal "addendum" permitting house arrest has followed the same pattern of assertion and counter-assertion. Najib's side maintains such a document exists; the Board's secretariat said in January 2025 that nothing of the kind was in its file and that it had received no order from the Palace; Anwar said it was never raised at the Board meeting. On 22 December 2025 the High Court dismissed Najib's bid, holding that the prerogative of mercy must be exercised on the Board's advice and that the matter had not been decided at the 29 January 2024 meeting. Najib appealed that ruling and then dropped the appeal: a notice of discontinuance dated 3 April 2026 withdrew it without liberty to file afresh, giving no reason, which leaves the High Court decision standing. Keep the two tracks apart — the house arrest fight is over, while the separate appeal against the 1MDB conviction is still running.

Three further prosecutions linked to 1MDB and SRC have also ended, and none of them produced a conviction. Najib and Arul Kanda were acquitted over the tampering of the 1MDB audit report in March 2023, and that acquittal became final in September 2023 when the prosecution missed the deadline to file its petition of appeal. The RM6.6 billion IPIC breach-of-trust charges against Najib and Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah ended in a discharge not amounting to an acquittal in November 2024, after the case had sat without trial since 2018. The RM27 million SRC money-laundering charges ended the same way in June 2025, after sitting since 2019. The distinction matters: a DNAA is not a finding of innocence, and the charges can be brought again.

So, for a first-time voter, the state of play is this. The courts have decided what Najib was convicted of, and one of those convictions is still under appeal. The Pardons Board has decided how long the SRC sentence runs. Two other files were closed without a verdict either way. And the reasons behind the Board's decision — the part that most of the public argument is actually about — have never been published, which is why this page can tell you what was decided but not why.