New Delhi, July 13 -- KUALA LUMPUR - For six years, Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman sat inside courtrooms that threatened to end his political career before it had fully begun. On Monday, Malaysia's Federal Court took that threat off the table.

In a 2-1 majority decision, the apex court dismissed the prosecution's appeal and acquitted the 31-year-old opposition lawmaker and Muda party founder on all four corruption charges stemming from 120,000 ringgit allegedly misappropriated from Armada, the youth wing of the Bersatu party he once led. Judges Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali and Collin Lawrence Sequerah voted to acquit; Abu Bakar Jais, the Court of Appeal president, dissented.

The acquittal, handed down at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya, brought...