Appellate court allows Sirul Azhar's mistrial application

The Court of Appeal has allowed the application by former Special Action Force personnel Sirul Azhar Umar to declare a mistrial in the case involving the murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu.

The prosecution, led by Tun Abdul Majid Hamzah, did not object to the application.

The three-member bench, consisting of Justices Mohamed Apandi Ali, Linton Albert and Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, instructed Sirul's defence team to file the application within 10 days.

This is to allow the team to gather notes of proceedings and other documents from the Shah Alam High Court, which imposed the conviction, relevant to the two new grounds of appeal which are now not before the Court of Appeal.

The case was then adjourned to June 24.

The defence team led by Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin applied to include the following grounds of appeal:

• That there was adverse publicity prejudicial against their client in the course of the trial, relating to the statutory declarations made by private investigator P Balasubramaniam and blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin; and

• That the presiding judge had access to this adverse publicity and statutory declarations, and that it may have played on his mind when he decided on the matter.

"There is real danger than the (High Court) may have not been partial and (was) biased due to the adverse publicity," Kamarul told reporters later.

Kamarul (right) had submitted to the bench that the High Court would have had access to the said statutory declarations as these were presented through a separate application by lawyer Karpal Singh.

Karpal had in July 2007 submitted to the High Court an application to call then deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, Balasubramaniam and two others as witnesses, but this was rejected.

The mistrial application has only been filed by Sirul Azhar, and is not a joint application with Special Action Force chief inspector Azilah Hadri, who has also been convicted of the same offence.

In deciding on the application today, Justice Mohamed Apandi censured Kamarul and his team for filing the matter "at the 11th hour" after the bench had "painstakingly read volumes and volumes" in preparation for the appeal.

"I don't want to postpone much longer as then we would have to read everything again and it's tiring," he said.

Hugs and kisses

Both Sirul Azhar and Azilah, handcuffed and dressed in white cotton pants and shirt with red sleeves, appeared calm in court.

Wearing white sneakers, Sirul Azhar, 39, appeared to be in lower spirits compared to Azilah.

Azilah, 34, who was in slippers, often smiled, especially when he spotted those in the public gallery that he recognised.

He was also kissed and hugged by those believed to be his friends and family.

The duo was convicted and sentenced to death by the Shah Alam High Court in 2009 for killing Altantuya, 28, at Mukim Bukit Raja in Klang between 10pm on Oct 19, 2006, and 1am the next day.

Former political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda (left) who was charged with abetment, was acquitted without his defence being called on Oct 31, 2008.