PUTRAJAYA (Jan 24): The government will leave it to the court to decide whether the documentary on the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal, Man on The Run, needs to be removed from Netflix, said Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.
Fahmi told a press conference on Wednesday that he had received legal advice from various parties, including the attorney general and legal counsel of the Communications Ministry regarding this matter, and that all of them expressed the same view.
“Since it has been brought up in court, we cannot override the [legal] process, so let the court decide,” Fahmi said.
However, Fahmi said the documentary had already been shown in cinemas back in October last year, after receiving approval from the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia, and that no issues had arisen at the time.
Earlier this month, former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak sent a request via his lawyers to the government to have Man on The Run removed from Netflix.
The lawyers claimed that the documentary is “sub judice, prejudiced, slanderous, biased, and has not, nor has ever been, proven through documentary information or oral testimony of witnesses presented in any trial, including the 1MDB-Tanore trial”.
Najib is currently serving a 12-year jail term for graft linked to the state fund 1MDB, from which US and Malaysian investigators estimate that US$4.5 billion (RM21.3 billion) was stolen, with more than US$1 billion channelled to accounts linked to Najib, who has always maintained his innocence.
Meanwhile, regarding whether the Pardons Board has met to decide on Najib's pardon bid, Fahmi said the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday did not discuss the matter.
Previously, Channel News Asia reported that the Pardons Board was set to make a decision this month on Najib's application for a royal pardon.