Malaysia’s king lets Najib Razak serve the rest of his term under house arrest

King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar granted former prime minister Najib Razak a conditional pardon on 18 September, allowing him to serve the remainder of his current prison term under house arrest until 23 August 2028. The Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister’s Department said the decision came from the 64th meeting of the Federal Territories Pardons Board at Istana Negara. The board had deferred the file on 11 September.

The pardon is not free. Najib, 73, must pay a fine of 50 million ringgit, about $12.3 million. He must keep every condition attached to the order. If he breaks any of them, the pardon falls and he returns to prison at once. The department did not publish the full list of conditions.

Najib was prime minister from 2009 to 2018. In 2020 he was convicted over money taken from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the state fund he co-founded. The first sentence was 12 years and a 210 million ringgit fine. In early 2024 the previous king, Sultan Abdullah, cut the term to six years and the fine to 50 million ringgit. Najib then argued that the 2024 decision also entitled him to house arrest. The courts said Malaysian law had no such mechanism. Friday’s royal order is the mechanism he could not win from a judge.

The sentence that is not covered

In December 2025 Najib was convicted on four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering in a second 1MDB case. That judgment carried a 15-year term and a fine of about $2.8 billion. Those years are set to begin after the current sentence ends. House arrest until August 2028 does not cancel that second clock. It only changes the address at which he serves the first one.

That distinction is the core of the story. Supporters will treat Friday as mercy after four years inside. Opponents will treat it as a royal door opened for a man the courts have now convicted twice. Both readings can be true at once. The king has unilateral pardon power. The second conviction remains on the books.

Why the palace, and why now

Najib has petitioned for home detention for more than two years. The legal route failed. The political route is the Pardons Board, which the king chairs for the Federal Territories. A deferral on 11 September and an approval on 18 September means the file moved in a week. The statement from the Prime Minister’s Department is dry on purpose. It records consent, a date, a fine and a revocation clause. It does not explain the change of mind.

House arrest at a privately owned mansion is not the same as a completed sentence. It is also not acquittal. Najib still has to pay 50 million ringgit. He still faces a 15-year term that has not started. The 1MDB scandal removed tens of billions of dollars from a public fund and helped bring down his government in 2018. Friday changes where he sleeps until August 2028. It does not close the rest of the docket.