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Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has officially dropped his appeal against a High Court decision that rejected his application to serve the remainder of his SRC International jail sentence under house arrest
His legal representatives, Messrs Shafee & Co, filed a notice of discontinuance on 3 April.
The filing specifies that the appeal is discontinued "without liberty to file afresh and with no order as to costs", effectively preventing Najib from refiling an appeal for house arrest regarding this specific case, as reported by Free Malaysia Today.
The initial application for house arrest was dismissed by Justice Alice Loke on 22 December
In her grounds for the decision, Justice Loke noted that while the Federal Territories Pardons Board had provided advice on a full pardon and a 50% reduction of his prison term, there was no record of "house arrest" being discussed or included in the decision made during the meeting presided over by the Agong, according to Malay Mail.
Consequently, the Agong's decision was limited strictly to the reduction of the prison term and the fine.
Separate from the SRC International matter, Najib faced a significant sentence in the 1MDB case
On 26 December, High Court Judge Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah sentenced Najib to 15 years in prison and imposed a fine of RM11.387 billion following his conviction on 25 charges.
The court found Najib guilty of four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering, involving RM2.28 billion in 1MDB funds deposited into his accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
For the abuse of power charges, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison on each count, to run concurrently. For the 21 money laundering charges, he received five years' imprisonment on each count, also to run concurrently. Additionally, the court ordered him to pay a recoverable sum of RM2.08 billion.
Judge Sequerah ordered that the 15-year sentence for the 1MDB conviction is to begin in 2028, only after Najib completes his current six-year prison sentence for the SRC International case.
