Malaysia’s Najib ‘has no money’ to pay fine for house arrest, lawyer says

Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak has no money to pay the fine to secure his transfer to house arrest, his lawyers have said, as they question the delay in releasing the full details of the conditional pardon granted by Malaysia’s king last week.
King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar last Friday decreed that Najib would be allowed to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home, on condition that he pay his 50 million ringgit (US$10.3 million) fine.
The decision triggered widespread outrage among Malaysians over the purported preferential treatment for the corruption-tainted former prime minister and a fundraiser launched by his former ruling Umno party to settle the fine.
Najib’s release into house arrest, however, was far from certain as he currently had no means to raise the funds on his own after the authorities froze access to all of his bank accounts, his lawyers said outside the Kuala Lumpur court complex on Friday.
“Datuk Seri Najib on his own cannot afford to pay [the fine] … he has no money,” Najib’s lead lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told a news conference, using the former leader’s honorifics.
Last week’s house arrest decree is the second pardon granted to Najib, who was jailed in 2022 after failing to overturn a conviction for stealing 42 million ringgit (US$10.3 million) from a former unit of the troubled state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

In 2024, then-king Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah halved his 12-year sentence and reduced his fine from 210 million ringgit to 50 million ringgit.
But Najib faces the prospect of serving an additional 15-year jail sentence – on top of an 11.4 billion ringgit fine – after he was found guilty by a high court last December on multiple counts of abuse of power and money laundering involving 2.2 billion ringgit in funds siphoned out from 1MDB.
Shafee said it was clear throughout Najib’s 1MDB trial that he did not keep any of the funds allegedly donated by the Saudi royal family, having returned the balance after spending about 300 million ringgit on election campaigns, corporate social responsibility and welfare work.
“If you ask where are the billions, that is a stupid question. Because the testimony has clearly shown, he does not have the money,” said Shafee, adding that Najib did not ask for public contributions.
The lawyer said Najib’s legal team was also unclear on the exact conditions of the latest pardon, as neither Najib nor the prisons department had received any official letter outlining the details of the king’s decree.
The lack of clarity could impair their ability to take the necessary steps to fulfil the conditions laid out by the king, Shafee said.
“We don’t know why that letter is taking so long … it is not normal for it to be delayed like this,” he said.
Earlier on Friday, Najib filed an application to pause the execution of his 1MDB conviction to allow him to exhaust all avenues to appeal against the judgment.
The Kuala Lumpur High Court has set October 14 for a decision.