PUTRAJAYA – Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has stressed that former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is not receiving any special treatment while serving his sentence in prison.
This statement comes in response to claims made by preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin, who was recently released from Kajang Prison.
He said in an interview that he had seen Najib serving his sentence at the Kajang Prison, but he seemed to be receiving “very special treatment”.
“There are officers and specific blocs in prison; they monitor (Najib) just as they do with other inmates.
“In this case, I uphold the statement issued by the Prison Department’s director-general,” Saifuddin told a press conference at the ministry today.
Following the allegations, Prisons Department director-general Datuk Nordin Muhammad said that the former prime minister was not receiving any special treatment.
Nordin said that Najib was still subject to the Prison Act 1955, adding that action would be taken if any special treatment were to be given to inmates.
According to Wan Ji, one of the special treatments Najib enjoyed included wearing regular home clothing instead of the standard prison uniforms.
The preacher was sentenced to nine months of imprisonment for sedition against the Selangor Sultan in a Facebook post uploaded in 2012.
Najib was convicted by the high court in July 2020 of corruption involving RM42 million in funds belonging to SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
The former Umno president was sentenced to prison in Kajang on August 23, 2022, after the Federal Court upheld its decision to convict him in his SRC trial. He was to serve for a total of 12 years.
However, on February 2, the Pardons Board secretariat for the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Labuan, and Putrajaya announced that Najib’s sentence had been reduced from 12 years to six, as well as his fine from RM210 million to RM50 million.
Nonetheless, failure to pay the fine would result in an additional year of imprisonment for Najib.
Najib’s court proceedings on April 2 for the 1MDB case were also cut short due to his reported bout of diarrhoea. – April 4, 2024