SIRUL'S SAFETY A REAL CONCERN: Dr M's phone meeting with Altantuya killer to be kept SECRET

KUALA LUMPUR - PAS MP Datuk Mahfuz Omar, who has been acting as Sirul Azhar Umar’s go-between with his Malaysian links, has refused to reveal if the former police commando and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will speak in a teleconference this month.

Asked to confirm an Australian newspaper’s report that the phone meeting is expected to proceed, the Pokok Sena MP told Malay Mail Online that the matter is a “secret”.

“Let it be a secret,” Mahfuz said in a text message.

When pressed for details on whether Sirul, who was convicted earlier this year for the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaaribuu, had agreed to the teleconference, or if there were any other plans involving him, the lawmaker again refused to speak further on the matter.

“That’s a secret too,” he told Malay Mail Online.

On Saturday, a report in the Sydney Morning Herald said the teleconference may happen some time this month.

Mahfuz Omar

The report, which features an exclusive interview with Sirul, said Dr Mahathir is expected to call him at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre, where he is currently held by Australian authorities.

It also said Sirul's future now hinges on the phone call because the former police commando — who claims to know who ordered the murder of Altantuya, the young lover of one of Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s former aides — believes his secret could win him his ticket to freedom.

But when contacted for details, Sirul's lawyer Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin said his client will not be discussing his case with anyone outside any legal proceeding.

The lawyer did neither confirmed nor denied the report, but claimed that Sirul had not spoken with anyone from the media recently.

Mahfuz had first proposed the teleconference early last month following Dr Mahathir’s meeting with Sirul’s mother Piah Samat.

The meeting took place after Dr Mahathir joined calls for the police to reopen Altantuya’s murder case and look into Sirul’s claim that he and Azilah Hadri, another former police commando, had killed her under orders.

Dr M

Sirul and Azilah were both sentenced to hang in January this year for the 2006 murder after the Federal Court reversed their previous acquittal.

Sirul was a no-show during the sentencing, however, and it was later revealed that he had fled to Australia to live with relatives.

Following a red alert issued by Interpol on Sirul, Australia's immigration authorities caught up with him and detained him at Villawood.

Sirul is currently caught in a legal limbo as although Australian law prohibits its government from sending criminals to countries that have the death penalty, he similarly cannot be released into the community there as he is a convicted murderer. - Malay Mail