The
Australian government will not extradite Corporal Sirul Azahar Umar, who was
sentenced to hang by Malaysia’s highest court Monday for the murder of
Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu in October of 2006, turning down a
request from Malaysian police.
At that,
Sirul is no civil rights refugee. In a n a sworn statement to police when
he was originally arrested, Sirul said he and Azilah had been offered RM50,000
to RM100,000 to kill the woman. But the mystery person who ordered the
killing has never been identified despite eight years of court trials at three
levels. In a significant departure from other cases, the faces of the two
men have never been shown in photographs. Cynics suggested that if the two were
sentenced to hang, the authorities might substitute unknown individuals in
their place.
According to
a statement to Australian media, a spokesman in the Attorney General’s office
said, “Australia’s extradition legislation does not allow a person to be
surrendered to another country for an offense punishable by death unless the
country has given Australia an undertaking that the death penalty will not be
carried out on the person.” Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he is
personally opposed to the death penalty.
Beyond that, the attorney
general’s office had no comment. Sirul, convicted along with Chief Inspector
Azilah Hadri, apparently fled to Australia sometime in August of 2013 after an
appellate court freed the two on a technicality. Sirul’s lawyer said he hadn’t
seen him since June 2013, but added he was in Australia and has no money
to return. Azilah was in Federal Court Monday, showing no expression when he
was sentenced to hang. He is not in custody. “As a matter of longstanding
practice the Australian government does not comment publicly on extradition
matters, including whether it has received an extradition request, until the
person is arrested or brought before a court pursuant to a request,” according
to the attorney general’s statement.
The two, bodyguards from an
elite police unit assigned to then-defense Minister Najib Tun Razak, were
originally sentenced to death for the killing of the 28-year-old Altantuya in a
trial court in 2009. The case is one of the most controversial in
Malaysian history, bound up in high-level political intrigue involving now
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and one of his best friends, Abdul Razak
Baginda.
Razak Baginda, who was
married, and Altantuya toured Europe in his Ferrari before he jilted
her. he affair peripherally involved allegations that €114 million in
bribes were paid by the French munitions maker DCN and destined for the United
Malays National Organization as the result of the purchase of US$1 billion worth
of submarines. Abdul Razak was an agent on the deal. He was later charged and
then allowed to go free without presenting a defense in the murder case.
According to his own sworn
statement filed with police, Altantuya was Razak Baginda’s lover and had performed
a minor role as a translator. She was said by a private detective to have
been Najib’s lover before being passed to Razak Baginda. The future prime
minister didn’t want to be entangled with a glamorous mistress as he rose to
the top.
In court and in the
investigation, every attempt was made to ensure that the names of top political
figures would never be mentioned.
However, on Nov. 9, 2006,
at Kuala Lumpur's Travers police station, Sirul, then 35, confessed to the
murder. His confession, obtained by Asia Sentinel, was never admitted in court.
The confession, in chilling
detail, said Sirul had been told by Azilah that “there was work to be done and
just asked me to follow him." Sirul said that Musa Safri, Najib's chief of
staff, "had told him about a friend …who had women problems."
Neither Najib nor Musa were
ever questioned about who sent the two men first to the Hotel Malacca, where,
according to the testimony, Azilah wanted Sirul to kill not only Altantuya but
the two women who had accompanied her to Kuala Lumpur.
Sirul and Azilah went to
the Malaya Hotel but decided not to kill the three women "because of the
presence of CCTV (closed circuit television cameras)."
Ultimately, according to
the confession, the two went to Razak Baginda's house where "there was a
Chinese woman [Altantuya] who was causing a commotion."
The two, with the help of a
Malay woman, presumably Lance Corporal Rohaniza Roslan, Azilah's former
girlfriend, bundled Altantuya into a car and drove her to where Sirul's jeep
waited.
"Along the journey,
Azilah asked me to find a place to ‘shoot to kill' the Chinese woman."
Eventually after she was driven to Sirul's house to pick up the military
explosives that would be wrapped around her body after she was dead, she was
then driven to the Punchak Alam forest reserve near the suburban city of Shah
Alam.
"I saw Azilah outside
the jeep carrying a bag containing an M5 weapon and silencer from the jeep that
was located at the foot rest of the passenger seat and gave it to me ordering
me to ‘shoot to kill' the Chinese woman who was inside the jeep."
They took her jewelry and
other articles, Sirul said, and "I saw that she was in a state of fear and
she pleaded not to kill her and said she was expecting." Nonetheless,
Azilah wrestled her to the ground, apparently knocking her unconscious, and
"I opened fire towards the left side of the woman's head. After the
Chinese woman was shot, Azilah removed all her clothes and I took a black
garbage bag and Azilah put all the Chinese woman's clothes into the bag."
Azilah, he said,
"noticed movements in the Chinese woman's arm and ordered me to fire
another shot but the gun did not fire. I then emptied the weapon and loaded the
gun again and fired another shot at the same area which was the left side of
the woman's head. I then took a black plastic garbage bag and with Azilah's
help put the bag over the Chinese woman's head to prevent blood from
spilling."
With Sirul holding her arms
and Azilah holding her legs, they carried Altantuya into the woods.
"Azilah then carried the bag containing the explosives and handed it to
me. I took the explosives and attached them to the victim's head while Azilah
attached the explosives on the victim's legs up to the abdomen." After
attaching a wire to the explosives, they blew her up.
After returning to the
Bukit Aman police station, "I had a bath and changed clothes and put the
clothes that I wore during the incident together with the victim's clothes into
a plastic bag. After that, I entered the jeep and drove the jeep to a rubbish
container in the Bukit Aman area near a construction site. I threw some of the
victim's belongings and the wire that was used to detonate the explosives
together with the empty bag that contained the explosives into the
container."
According to a note found
after her death, the victim had come to Malaysia from Mongolia to “blackmail”
US$500,000 from Abdul Razak. According to a sworn statement by the late private
detective Perumal Balasubramaniam, Razak Baginda “inherited” the woman from
Najib.
Substantial evidence
connected Najib to the case, including text messages to Razak Baginda assuring
him Najib would fix things. The two bodyguards were acquitted on a
technicality in the appellate court in 2013. After he got off, Razak Baginda
left Malaysia for an extended period although he has been seen in Kuala Lumpur.
Asia
Sentinel
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