Malaysia’s king lets Najib Razak finish his 1MDB sentence at home

King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar consented on Friday, 18 September, to let former prime minister Najib Razak serve the rest of his graft sentence under house arrest until 23 August 2028. The Prime Minister’s Department legal affairs division said the pardon is conditional on payment of a RM50 million fine, about $12.3 million.

The Federal Territories Pardons Board met at Istana Negara, the king’s official residence in Kuala Lumpur. Attorney-General Dusuki Mokhtar and Federal Territories Minister Hannah Yeoh attended. The same board had deferred Najib’s application a week earlier, on 11 September, while granting clemency to other prisoners.

Najib, 73, was prime minister from 2009 to 2018. A court found him guilty of corruption tied to 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the state investment fund he co-founded in office. Billions of dollars left the fund. He began a 12-year prison term after appeals failed. In January 2024 the previous king halved that sentence to six years and cut the fines. Najib has now spent about four years inside.

A second royal intervention

This is the second pardon in the same case. After the 2024 reduction Najib argued that the earlier decision also allowed house arrest. A legal effort to enforce that reading failed. Friday’s statement is more precise. It names the end date, names the fine, and calls the arrangement a conditional pardon rather than a release.

House arrest until August 2028 would take him to the end of the reduced term if the fine is paid. The statement does not say what happens if the money is not paid. It also does not list the address, the monitoring rules, or whether he may receive visitors or give interviews. Those details usually sit in a separate instrument from the prisons department and the police.

1MDB remains an unfinished political file. The fund’s collapse helped bring down Najib’s Barisan Nasional government in 2018. Successor governments have pursued asset recovery in several countries. Najib still faces other charges that have moved more slowly than the SRC International case that put him in prison. Friday’s pardon covers the remainder of the sentence he is now serving. It does not, on the published text, wipe the conviction or close other files.

The politics around Istana Negara

Malaysia’s Yang di-Pertuan Agong chairs the pardons board for the Federal Territories. The post rotates among the country’s hereditary rulers. Sultan Ibrahim of Johor took the federal throne in 2024. He has spoken in public about prisons, mercy and the backlog of petitions. A delay on 11 September, followed by a grant seven days later, will be read in UMNO and in Pakatan Harapan as a calculated pause rather than a change of mind.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition depends on a complex bargain with parties that once served under Najib. UMNO remains part of that bargain. Party workers have campaigned for years for Najib’s release. Reform groups have argued that house arrest for a conviction of this size weakens the signal sent by the original trial. Neither camp received a speech from the palace. They received a one-page departmental note.

Najib’s family home in Kuala Lumpur has been the assumed destination since the first house-arrest claim in 2024. If that is where he goes, the move will be visible. Camera crews already wait outside Kajang Prison when rumours circulate. The legal affairs division did not announce a transfer hour.

What Friday changes is the location of the remaining term, not the fact of the term. Until 23 August 2028, if the fine is paid, the former prime minister is to live under restriction rather than in a cell. The conviction stands. The other 1MDB cases still sit on the list.