KUALA LUMPUR - PAS lawmaker Datuk Mahfuz Omar repeated his demand today that the police reopen Altantuya Shaariibuu’s murder investigation, after failing in Parliament to glean a response from Putrajaya.
In a statement, the Pokok Sena MP lamented Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s refusal to reply to his request that the murder case be investigated again when the latter was wrapping up debates for his ministry on the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s address.
“I stood up to remind him (about the fresh probe). Ahmad Zahid Hamidi did not even respond to that question.
“This only means that Altantuya’s murder case will continue to be a mystery,” he said.
Mahfuz and other opposition lawmakers have been campaigning hard for the police to reopen the case after one of Altantuya’s convicted killers, former police commando Sirul Azhar Umar claimed that he had only been acting on someone else’s orders when he committed the crime in 2006.
Mahfuz said today identifying the murder motive is most important to bring closure to the highly-publicised murder case.
“I urge the government, through the Royal Malaysian Police, to be brave and transparent and to reopen investigations so that the party with the actual murder motive can be brought to book,” the PAS information chief said.
Earlier this month, Mahfuz organised a trip to Australia with the family members of Sirul, who is currently under immigration detention in Sydney.
He was detained in Australia after the Malaysian government sought a security alert on Interpol to hunt him down.
Sirul and another police commando with the rank of chief inspector, Azilah Hadri, were charged with murdering Altantuya in 2006 and convicted by the High Court in 2009.
They were freed after the appellate court acquitted them in 2013, but the Federal Court reversed the acquittal last January and sent them back to hang, marking the end to the eight-year saga.
Sirul was a no-show during the Federal Court hearing and it was later revealed that he is in Australia.
Malaysia is seeking to extradite him home to face his sentencing but he remains in Sydney as Australia’s laws forbid its government from sending criminals to countries that have the death penalty. - Malay Mail
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