Utusan Malaysia retracts story on Najib’s purported pardon, issues apology

KUCHING (Jan 30): Malay daily Utusan Malaysia has retracted its story claiming that former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had received a pardon from the Pardons Board.

The news site had published a story titled ‘Najib dapat pengampunan?’ (Najib receives pardon?) quoting a source as saying that the Pardons Board had approved Najib’s pardon bid.

According to Malayskini, the original headline was ‘Najib bebas, terima pengampunan’ (Najib freed, receives pardon) .

However, at 3.45pm, the news site published a new story saying that it had withdrawn the report.

“Utusan Malaysia has retracted the news about Najib’s pardon due to facts that could not be verified.

“Therefore we apologise to the readers,” the two paragraph article stated.

The Pardons Board is expected to issue a statement on its meeting at Istana Negara yesterday.

Berita Harian reported that Minister in the Prime Minister (Federal Territories) Dr Zaliha Mustafa had confirmed she attended the meeting yesterday but did not give further details regarding the matter.