PUTRAJAYA: Two former police commandos were sentenced to death yesterday after the Federal Court allowed the government’s appeal in the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006.

Federal Court judge Suriyadi Halim Omar said the prosecution had proved its case to implicate Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azahar Umar on the charge that carried the death penalty.

“As such, the Court of Appeal was wrong in reversing the findings of the trial court to free them,” said Suriyadi, a member of the five-man bench who heard the final appeal. 

On Aug 23, 2013, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeals brought by Azilah and Sirul and acquitted them.

Azilah was expressionless as the verdict was read. Sirul did not show up in court yesterday.

Prosecutor Datuk Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah asked the court to issue a warrant of arrest for Sirul and it was granted.

Bernama reported that according to a source, Sirul had gone abroad two months ago. He is believed to be in Australia, with insufficient money to return to Malaysia although he knew the court would be delivering its judgment yesterday.

Four years earlier, High Court judge Datuk Zaki Mohd Yassin found the two guilty and sentenced them to death.

Evidence in court revealed that the Mongolian translator was either murdered by C4 explosives or was killed first and the remains destroyed on Oct 18, 2006 on the outskirts of Shah Alam.

Former political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, a confidante of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, was charged with abetting Azilah and Sirul but was acquitted by the High Court in 2008 without his defence being called. The government did not appeal.

Despite yesterday’s conviction, the motive for the murder of Altantuya was never revealed.

In an immediate response Tun Abd Majid, who conducted the case from the High Court, said he is glad the matter is over and the hard work has paid off.

Lawyer Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin, who represented Sirul, said he last contacted his client a week after the conclusion of the appeal hearing in the Federal Court in June.

“We could not contact him to inform him about the delivery of the verdict as we do not have his latest contact number,” he said.

The only option left now for the police is to apply for a pardon to the Sultan of Selangor to commute their death sentences to imprisonment.

Also present at the hearing was Mongolian government representative Reynolds Augustine.

Suriyadi said the Azilah’s alibi evidence that he was not at the crime scene was a non-starter and that the piece of evidence was bare denial.

He said Sirul’s unsworn statement from the dock was totally discredited and this left him with no defence at all.

Suriyadi said Azilah relied greatly on an entry in a Bukit Aman police station diary that he was not at Puncak Alam, the crime scene in Shah Alam. He said the maker of the diary was not called to confirm the truth of the entry and unless proven, it remained hearsay. “With only a notice of alibi and unproved document to fall back on as opposed to the watertight case of the prosecution, it was no surprise that a prima facie case was established.”

There was also independent information as well as demonstrations by witnesses from a mobile telecommunication company which showed that Azilah was near the crime scene.

“None of the calls by the first respondent (Azilah) were detected from Wangsa Maju or Bukit Aman during the material time,” he said, adding that Azilah could not have been anywhere except in Puncak Alam as indicated by the call logs.

The judge said the assertion that Azilah was in Bukit Aman to collect a firearm before leaving for Putrajaya was also made without corroboration.

“With the call logs being inadmissible, the alibi defence is no better than a mere denial,” Suriyadi said.

The judge said Azilah and Sirul had independently led police to the crime scene, a remote and isolated place high in the hills where human remains were found.

“They are policemen from a special force unit and are not expected to be easily intimidated,” he said, adding that on these grounds, the information leading to the discovery of evidence by the two cops should be accepted.

He said the information given by Sirul had also led to the discovery of jewellery which belonged to the victim at the accused’s home. “The possession of the jewellery in his black jacket has not been explained by him,” Suriyadi said.

Of the fact that no calls were made to Najib’s then aide-de camp, DSP Musa Safri, and that there was no tendering of text messages between Razak and Azilah, the judge said this did not amount to suppression of evidence leading to a mistrial. 

“It merely confirmed from the evidence of two prosecution witnesses that Razak had a relationship with the deceased and that he requested help from Musa.

“We are therefore unable to see how many more details Musa could produce that would contribute to the respondents’ (Azilah and Sirul) defence,” he said. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 14, 2015.