KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said house arrest is separate from parole and remission, and is not an unusual arrangement for prisoners.
Shafee said there had been considerable speculation over how house arrest would work following the conditional pardon allowing Datuk Seri Najib Razak to serve the remainder of his SRC International sentence at home.
"House arrest has nothing to do with parole, has got nothing to do with remission, nothing," he told reporters after court proceedings here today.
Shafee said remission and parole are mechanisms through which a prisoner's period of incarceration could be reduced, while house arrest involved serving a sentence outside prison.
He said remission could reduce a prisoner's sentence subject to good conduct, while parole involved a separate process determined by a parole board.
Shafee maintained that house arrest was not unusual and said similar arrangements had previously been extended to other prisoners.
He recalled seeing notices during a visit to Najib at prison concerning licences issued to prisoners allowing them to return home temporarily, including during Hari Raya.
According to Shafee, the licences allowed prisoners to leave prison for periods ranging from seven days to a month, subject to conditions.
"This licence is house arrest. But house arrest was executed or mechanised by way of the licence arrangement.
"I give you a licence to leave prison, these are the conditions. If you breach the conditions, you go back in.
"So, that is limited house arrest. But it is house arrest," he said.
Shafee said much of the public discussion surrounding Najib's house arrest had been speculative, particularly over the conditions that could be imposed.
He said the legal team itself still had limited information as it had yet to receive the official letter setting out the terms of Najib's conditional pardon.
Najib, 73, remains incarcerated at Kajang Prison pending the fulfilment of the conditions attached to the conditional pardon. - NST
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