Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak lost a bid to have his jail term changed to house arrest Monday, a setback ahead of a separate verdict this week tied to the country's 1MDB scandal.
Najib, 72, is serving a six-year jail term for corruption linked to the plunder of Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, which sparked probes in several countries.
His lawyers had argued that the purported existence of an order by Malaysia's former king, called a "royal addendum," granted him permission to serve the rest of his current sentence at home.
However, Judge Alice Loke Yee Ching disagreed, saying that the royal addendum was not a valid order.
Therefore, "the court cannot issue an order to direct a house arrest," Loke told the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
"There is no legal provision for house arrest in Malaysia," she said. "The judicial review is dismissed."
Dressed in a grey suit and white shirt, the former leader reacted with disappointment as Loke handed down the verdict.
His lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, told reporters after the hearing that Najib would appeal against the verdict and that the former premier was "very disappointed with the decision."
Najib was originally sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment in July 2020 in a first trial involving some 42 million ringgit ($9.9 million at the time), siphoned from a former 1MDB subsidiary called SRC International Sdn Bhd.
The term was later halved by a pardons board.
