KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Razak's defence team today refuted claims that the Pardon Board would decide on his application for a royal pardon at the end of this month.
Najib's lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said they did not receive any updates on their application as of December last year.
"Our client and us are in the dark about the state of Najib's petition for pardon and we are baffled as to how Channel News Asia (CNA) through their reporter Leslie Lopez are able to provide a spectacular 'news' in their article pertaining to this matter.
"The petition has been filed for more than 16 months and Najib has been in prison for a year and four months. As lawyers, we are more anxious about our client's position, considering his sole ground for his request for pardon was on the basis that he had never received a fair trial.
"We are therefore dumbfounded as to how CNA has speculated this unfounded news," he said in a statement today.
Shafee said this in response to CNA's news article, stated that the Pardons Board, which is headed by Yang di-Pertuan Agong is set to determine soon whether to grant Najib a royal pardon to his 12-year jail sentence for convictions tied to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) debacle.
Quoting a source, the article stated that a royal pardon first came before the Pardons Board in a meeting in December, but the matter was deferred to this month's session, which is now scheduled for the third week of January and likely to see a decision being made.
Najib was sent to Kajang prison following the loss of his final appeal in a corruption case involving 1MDB former subsidiary SRC International Bhd.
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