The Malaysian Insight

AZILAH Hadri’s former lawyer today questioned the timing of the death row inmate’s statutory declaration that directly implicates Najib Razak in the murder of Mongolian interpreter Altantuya Shaariibuu.

“Why now?” Hazman Ahmad told The Malaysian Insight when asked to comment on Azilah’s fresh allegations against the former prime minister.

“It is not easy to prove it legally… it has been 13 years already. Why now? Only he knows.”

He said the SD and Azilah’s application to review the Federal Court decision to convict him can go either way.

He also said the police can reopen investigations into the case by calling in those named in Azilah’s SD.

The lawyer also said he had not been in touch with Azilah, who is locked up in Kajang Prison, “for quite some time”.

Hazman, however refused to divulge if his client had spoken to him previously about Najib’s involvement in the murder.

“My communication with him is privileged. Sorry,” he said.

Hazman also did not rule out the possibility that the latest development has a political context to it.

Earlier today, the Federal Court fixed April 20, 2020 to hear Azilah’s review application.

Now represented by J. Kuldeep Kumar, Azilah was convicted of the murder of Altantuya in 2006 and is seeking a retrial.

Azilah’s applications to set aside the 2015 Federal Court ruling, which overturned his acquittal, and another for a retrial, were filed last week.

Azilah’s applications were accompanied by a statutory declaration dated October 17, in which he accused Najib Razak of ordering Altantuya’s murder.

Azilah had been member of Najib’s security detail and said in the statutory declaration he was recommended for the job by the Pekan MP’s aide-de-camp in 2006, DSP Musa Safri.

He also said Najib’s close associate, Abdul Razak Baginda, also known as the then deputy prime minister’s special officer, repeated the instructions to kill Altantuya, and confirmed with him that the order had come from Najib.

Razak, who was initially charged with abetting in the murder, was later acquitted.

Azilah and fellow commando Sirul Azhar Umar were convicted of murdering Altantuya in 2009. They were sentenced to death by the apex court in 2015.

A year prior to his conviction, Sirul fled to Australia and has been held at a Sydney detention centre since.

Najib has denied Azilah’s claims and said it was Pakatan Harapan’s way of silencing him and a distraction from their own weaknesses.

He has also applied to be an intervenor in Azilah’s review application. – December 17, 2019.