Former Malaysian PM’s wife gets passport back, can fly to Singapore to be with daughter as she gives birth

Singapore—Rosmah Mansor, wife of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, has been granted permission by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Friday (Oct 15) to fly to Singapore.

So her passport, which had been seized, would be returned to her for the trip.

She had applied to have it temporarily released so that she can be with her second daughter, Ms Nooryana Najwa, who is due to give birth soon at a private hospital in Singapore.

Ms Nooryana and her husband, Mr Daniyar Kessikbayev, a Kazakh national, live in Singapore. He is the nephew of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was the first president of Kazakhstan and served for almost three decades.

Rosmah had applied to the High Court on Tuesday for the temporary release of her passport so she can be with Ms Nooryana, who “has a history of complications during delivery”, she wrote in her application.

She added that she wanted to give her daughter mental and emotional support after the daughter gives birth.

On Friday morning, Judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan allowed the application, which had been filed by Rosmah’s legal counsel, Mr Jagjit Singh.

She is now allowed to leave Malaysia but is required to return her passport to the court on or before Dec 6.

Her passport was seized in 2019 after she was charged with money laundering and other charges. She faces 17 such charges of money laundering involving millions of dollars, as well as bribery and corruption charges. 

Her husband served as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia from April 2009 to May 2018, and is a central figure in the 1MDB scandal which saw billions of dollars siphoned from this Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.

In 2018, he was charged with abuse of power, multiple counts of criminal breach of trust and money laundering, and tampering with the 1MDB audit report.

Last year, the High Court in Malaysia convicted him of seven counts of abuse of power, money laundering and criminal breach of trust and sentenced him to 12 years in jail. He is the first Prime Minister of Malaysia to be convicted of corruption.

He is appealing his conviction and recently told Reuters that he has not ruled out seeking re-election to Parliament.

/TISG

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Najib to ‘support’ Rosmah tomorrow when judge decides if she has to enter defence in bribes-for-project trial