Najib Addendum saga : The Pardon's board minutes of meeting that discussed Najib's pardon has been "leaked"

Najib Addendum saga : The Pardon's board minutes of meeting that discussed Najib's pardon has been "leaked"


15 Jan 2025 • 5:00 PM MYT

TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: mStar


In the latest episode in the Najib Addendum saga, the Pardon Board's minute of meeting, where the issue of Najib’s pardon and house arrest was supposedly discussed, has been conveniently leaked.


Now we can see why Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s senior political secretary, Shamsul Iskandar Akin was so keen on getting the minutes of the meeting released. He probably wanted the minutes of the meeting released, because the minutes seems exonerate the government from the charges that it was “concealing” the Najib addendum, which Najib claims should allow him to be released from prison and serve the remainder of this sentence under house arrest.


The charges that the government was concealing the said addendum arose in Jan 6, when the appeals court granted a bid by jailed ex-premier Najib Razak to see a document he said should allow him to serve his sentence at home, in a rare win for a disgraced former leader at the heart of the country’s biggest scandal.


After Shamsul urged for the minutes of the meeting to be released, Federal territories minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa would then dismiss the call for the Federal Territories Pardons Board (FTPB) to make public its deliberations on Najib Razak’s pardon application.


“The meeting minutes are confidential and therefore we cannot make them public” Dr Zaliha said.


Zaliha also said only members of FTPB have the right to access the meeting minutes.


After Shamsul’s urging and Dr Zaliha’s dismissal of his urging has made us all aware and intrigued of the minutes of the meeting, the purported minutes of meeting has now been conveniently leaked into the public space, in a way that seems to exonerate the government for both leaking the minutes of meeting and the allegation that it concealed the Najib Addendum.


It exonerates the government from the former because Dr Zaliha has publicly said that the government will not disclose the minutes of the meeting – if the minutes have been leaked anyway, it must have thus happened without the consent of the government.


It exonerates the government from the latter, because the minutes purportedly show that the subject of Najib’s house arrest was not discussed.


The matter of the purported minutes of meeting being leaked was first raised by Najib Razak loyalist Eric See-To, through his “Lim Sian See” Facebook page.


According to See-To, who has likely sighted the purported leak of minutes of the Federal Territories Pardons Board, other than show that there was no discussion about placing Najib under house arrest, the purported minutes also show that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had proposed a full pardon, and that this was rejected by the then attorney-general (Ahmad Terrirudin Salleh).