DON'T KNOW, THEN PROBE MUSA SAFRI WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOR! We’ll never know why ‘rogue cops’ killed Altantuya - IGP

It appears that inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar has joined the long queue of those in the dark about the motive behind the grisly murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu.

He broached this issue in response to political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, who yesterday described the killing of his Mongolian lover as the work of “rogue policemen”.

Razak Baginda, who was acquitted of abetting the murder of Altantuya, bolstered his argument by citing cases of police custodial death in an exclusive interview with The Malaysian Insider.

However, Khalid stressed that while “rogue elements” existed in all organisations, not all cases of custodial deaths were due to police brutality.

“These are only one or two cases (where police caused the death). This happens everywhere. So his blanket statement is unacceptable,” he told Malaysiakini.

The police chief was referring to many cases where post-mortem reports revealed the detainees had died of illnesses.

As for the Altantuya murder, Khalid said the long court process ended with the verdict that she was killed by two police commandos, Sirul Azhar Umar and Azilah Hadri, who have since been expelled from the force.

“But as many observers pointed out, the court did not determine a motive in the case concerning Altantuya.

“Hence, I suppose we will never know why the ‘rogue policemen’ acted as such,” he said.

In its 2012 decision, the High Court ruled that the motive for the brutal murder was “not essential” to the case.

However, Khalid refused to be drawn into sharing his thoughts on the many conspiracy theories swirling around the controversial case. “My predecessor has spoken extensively on this,” he said.

Law breakers not tolerated

Nevertheless, the police chief stressed that his remarks were not in defence of his men and women who broke the law, which he added would not be tolerated by the force.

“Whoever commits a crime must face the consequences of their actions, and this includes police personnel as well,” he said.

Altantuya was killed in 2006 and the two police officers from the elite Special Action Unit were nabbed when Musa Hassan was police chief.

The police had then cleared Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, a close associate of Razak Baginda of any involvement, and the latter reaffirmed this in his interview.

Earlier this month, the Federal Court reversed the appellate court’s verdict and sentenced Sirul and Azilah to death for the murder, where Altantuya’s body was blown up with explosives in a jungle clearing in Shah Alam.

It was later revealed that Sirul, who did not show up in court, was in Australia.

He is currently being detained by the Australian Immigration and Border Protection Department.

Malaysia is attempting to extradite him but Australian law prohibits sending back a person who is facing the death penalty in his or her home country. - M'kini