PUTRAJAYA (July 26): The parents of slain Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu are entitled to receive witness statements recorded by the police for their daughter's murder case to be used in their RM100 million lawsuit against the government as the criminal case had long ended, argued their counsel.
The family's lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo told the Court of Appeal today that it has been 15 years since the murder had taken place, and the criminal trial and appeals had long been concluded.
“Hence, the family is entitled to get the recorded statements by the police of witnesses in the case to help them in the ongoing civil case.
“The Section 112 Criminal Procedure Code statements should be made available to us. These statements are from the witnesses called by the prosecution or those not called by them. These documents should not be considered as privileged documents anymore as the trial and investigations are done with,” said the counsel.
She was submitting in the appeal to get the recorded statements by the police while the government, which is named as the fourth defendant in the suit owing to its vicarious liability in the matter, following the involvement of Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar who are convicted with the murder.
Besides naming the two former police officers, the family had named political analyst Abdul Razak Abdullah, or better known as Abdul Razak Baginda, as the other defendant.
High Court dismissed discovery application
Previously, it was reported that the High Court trial judge Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera had last year dismissed the family's discovery application to have these documents for use in the trial.
Justice Vazeer, who has been elevated to the Court of Appeal, is presently presiding in the civil trial at the Shah Alam High Court.
The family — through Altantuya's father Shaariibuu Setev, her mother and her two children — filed the suit in 2007, almost a year after the Mongolian was murdered atop a hill in Puncak Alam between 10pm on Oct 18 and 1am on Oct 19, 2006.
Abdul Razak was acquitted without his defence called by the High Court while both Azilah and Sirul were convicted and sentenced to death.
However, Sirul managed to leave the country before the Federal Court decision in 2015, and is now being held at the Australian immigration centre in Wollongong.
Sangeet argued that the Commonwealth countries had gone away from recognising the police recorded statements as privileged documents and that the courts here should follow suit.
“The judge was wrong in dismissing our application for discovery, as there are several other court decisions like the Siti Aisyah case that recognised it is an offence to give false statements to the police and action can be taken off if such statements are not true. These documents are not privileged documents.
“Furthermore, the practice in the Commonwealth also had recognised this,” she said, adding the Inspector General of Police had also commented that investigations on the matter had concluded.
Meanwhile, senior federal counsel Lim Ju Vyjn in reply maintained that such recorded statements are considered privileged documents and cannot be exposed to third parties.
“This is so and decided in the Datuk Seri Najib Razak case when he wanted the recorded statements by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission for his SRC International Sdn Bhd case, where the courts ruled that he is not entitled, for fear he may tamper [with] the witnesses' testimony.
“This is also applicable in this present case as these Section 112 statements are considered privileged documents,” he said.
He added that Sangeet should also have specified which particular document or witnesses that she wanted to review, and making this application on a general basis amounts to a fishing expedition in the civil trial.
Lim further maintained that investigations into the murder had not concluded owing to Shaariibuu's latest police report on the matter following Azilah's belated decision to affirm a statutory declaration claiming that Najib was the one who gave the orders to kill her.
The revision sought by Azilah for a re-trial to introduce new evidence was dismissed by the Federal Court earlier this year.
Sangeet, in her reply, said her client's case can be clearly distinguished from Najib's case, as the former premier wanted the documents before the start of his criminal trial.
“Here the criminal trial and appeals had already been exhausted and this proceeding is a civil case. We are not third parties but the plaintiffs are the deceased family members,” she said.
“Surely they are entitled to see the recorded statements by the police from the witnesses,” the lawyer added.
The bench led by Justice Datuk Nor Bee Ariffin has deferred in making a decision today, where the proceedings are conducted online, owing to several new case laws provided by both of them.
The other judges were Justices Datuk Supang Lian and Datuk Seri Mariana Yahya.