Convicted Malaysian leader's house arrest plea denied

FORMER Malaysian leader Najib Razak lost a bid to have his jail term changed to house arrest on 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.