THE Umno Supreme Council is seeking an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to get Najib Razak a royal pardon said Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki.

The Umno secretary-general said the Supreme Council will present a memorandum which will make a case for the former prime minister to be pardoned.

In a statement, Asyraf said the Supreme Council had received the memorandum from 191 Umno divisions and endorsed it.

“The Supreme Council takes note of the grief and concern among Umno grassroots over the (Federal Court’s) decision (to dismiss Najib’s bid to review his conviction and sentence in the SRC case),” he said in the statement which was posted on his Facebook page.

Article 42(1) of the Federal Constitution, gives the Agong or Sultan the power to grant a pardon or reprieve to a convict, wiping clean any legal punishments to provide a “clean slate”.

Last week, the Federal Court in a 4-1 decision rejected Najib’s bid for it to review it’s ruling last year upholding his conviction for misappropriating RM42 million from SRC International, cementing his 12-year sentence and RM210 million fine.

The majority decision by four judges on the panel rejected Najib’s challenge against his conviction and sentence in the SRC case, and effectively endorsed the August 2022 decision of the Federal Court panel chaired by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat which had ordered Najib to begin serving his sentence.

Federal Court judge Vernon Ong Lam Kiat read out the majority decision, which was agreed to by three others on the panel, Federal Court judges Rhodzariah Bujang and Nordin Hassan, and Court of Appeal judge Abu Bakar Jais who was sitting as a Federal Court judge.

Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Abdul Rahman Sebli, who was chairing the five-judge bench, was the only judge who dissented or disagreed with the majority.

On July 28, 2020, High Court judge Mohd Nazlan found Najib guilty of all seven charges, three for criminal breach of trust, three for money laundering, and one for abuse of power.

Nazlan, who is now a Court of Appeal judge, then sentenced Najib to 12 years in prison and fined him RM210 million in default five years imprisonment.

His decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal on December 8, 2021. – April 7, 2023.