Malaysia’s top prosecutor may reopen the case of murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaaribuu, according to a Bloomberg article published yesterday (Dec 24).
Malaysia has been rocked by a recent allegation by a former police guard, Azilah Hadri, that former Prime Minister Najib Razak gave the order for the murder of the model in 2006. He is seeking a retrial.
Azilah was convicted of the murder with another police guard, Sirul Azhar Umar.
Attorney-General Tommy Thomas spoke to Bloomberg in an interview on Friday (Dec 20). “Everybody knew that it just did not make sense for the two of them to be solely culpable,” he said. “So we knew that the story was incomplete.”
He added: “It’s more for the police to investigate and we will look into it.”
Meanwhile, the model’s father, Mr Shaariibuu Setev, hopes the new government will reopen the case and that he will find justice for his daughter at last.
Mr Shaariibuu Setev has spent more than a decade seeking closure over his daughter’s death. He is campaigning for Malaysia to commute the sentences of the two men convicted of the murder: Azilah, who is on Death Row in Kajang Prison, and Sirul, who is being held in an Australian detention centre for refugees.
Australia has rejected calls to hand over Sirul, fearing he will be placed on Death Row for the murder of Altantuya.
Azilah has claimed in a statutory declaration that he had met Najib and that the latter had asked him to carry out an order to eliminate an enemy of the state.
The enemy, Altantuya, was taken by unknown persons in a car and that was the last time she was seen alive.
She was later taken to a remote area, killed with a bullet in the head and blown to pieces with C4 plastic explosives attached to her body.
Najib has vehemently denied any involvement in the murder case. Last week, he took an oath to declare that he did not order the police guards, who were attached to his security detail, to commit murder.
Najib said the recent allegations against him are an attempt to finish his career while his lawyer, Mr Mohammad Shafee Abdullah, said it is a conspiracy between the accuser and the Pakatan Harapan government.
