Najib and the Pardons Board -It is for the Agong, not the PM , to decide if and when to announce the decision of the Board, not his Prime Minister, not the government

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

          Sultan Ibrahim arrives at Istana Negara, welcomed by PM Anwar

   

The Star and others have warned that:

Najib's pardon appeal: Reports must be based on official statement from Pardons Board

Implicit in that warning is the assertion that it is the Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and his government , who will decide what is to be announced and when.

That is not true, for as Anwar himself would know, when the former Agong the Sultan Of Kelantan pardoned him, the Agong himself made the statement

TO BE READ WITH 

Anwar: King granted my pardon on his own accord, called it 'clear travesty of justice'

By Arfa Yunus, Teh Athira Yusof and Hana Naz Harun - December 20, 2022 @ 3:25pm

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim did not ask for the royal pardon granted to him in 2018, the Dewan Rakyat heard today. - Pic courtesy of Information Ministry

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim did not ask for the royal pardon granted to him in 2018, the Dewan Rakyat heard today.

The prime minister said it was the then Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Muhammad V, who took the initiative to grant him the royal pardon.

"The king at the time had called me when I was still in the rehabilitation centre, and he told me that he would give me a full pardon.

"He said he had followed my court trial and said it was a clear travesty of justice. That was the phrase he used.

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"I want to make it clear, on the record, in the hansard," he said when presenting the Consolidated Fund (Expenditure on Account) bill in Dewan Rakyat, today.

He also said there were breaches in the principles of justice, including coercing individuals into becoming witnesses or opening investigations even before a police report was lodged.

The issue of his royal pardon was raised by opposition leader, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin (PN-Larut) in his debate during the vote of confidence to the prime minister yesterday.

Anwar (PH-Tambun) was jailed for six years for sodomy in 1999 and, a year later, another nine years for corruption.

He was freed in 2004 after Malaysia's top court overturned his sodomy conviction. However, he was imprisoned a second time for sodomy in 2015.

Sultan Muhammad V granted Anwar a full pardon in May 2018.