Sirul’s partner Azilah still waiting for a pardon hearing

PETALING JAYA - Former police Special Action Force officer Azilah Hadri, who is on death row for the murder of a Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaariibuu, has been waiting for more than two years for a hearing on his plea for clemency.

His lawyer, Hazman Ahmad, told FMT: “We are still waiting for the Selangor Pardons Board to set the hearing date.”

The Sultan of Selangor chairs the pardons board and its members include the Attorney-General and menteri besar.



Azilah and ex-commando Sirul Azhar Umar’s conviction and death sentence for the Altantuya murder was affirmed by the Federal Court in January 2015, nine years after she was killed in 2006 in a forest near Subang, Shah Alam, and her body blown up with explosives.

Sirul has been in the news after fleeing to Australia, where he has been held in an immigration detention centre. Yesterday, in a media interview, he said he was willing to return to Malaysia and reveal all that he knew, on condition that he was granted a full pardon.

Azilah’s application for a pardon was sent to the Selangor Pardons Board on Jan 16, 2016, and copies of the petition sent to the Attorney-General (AG) Mohamed Apandi Ali and Selangor Menteri Besar, Mohamed Azmin Ali.

(Apandi is on no-pay leave on the orders of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad while an investigation is carried out on whether evidence was concealed in relation to 1Malaysia Development Bhd.)

A co-accused, former political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, a confidant of then deputy prime minister Najib Razak, was acquitted in 2008 without his defence being called to the charge of abetting Azilah and Sirul.

The government did not appeal the acquittal.

Yesterday, Sirul questioned why there was no appeal, and why a key witness, a Najib aide, was never called.

Despite the conviction of the two former police commandos, the motive for the murder was never established.

By V Anbalagan FMT