KUALA LUMPUR,— Datuk Seri Najib Razak said he will swear a religious oath to deny a former police commando’s statutory declaration that the former prime minister ordered him to kill Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Najib announced his intention his Facebook page today.
“I intend to perform the sumpah laknat to deny the allegations contained in Azilah Hadri’s statutory declaration.
“I will perform this at Masjid Jamek in Kampung Baru here in the capital after Friday prayers,” he said.
The sumpah laknat is a sacred oath of sorts that Muslim politicians occassionally use as emphatic denials.
Azilah made a statutory declaration that was released this week in support of his application for a review of the Federal Court’s 2015 decision to uphold his conviction.
In it, the former commando claimed he was ordered to kill Altantuya directly by Najib, to whom he had been assigned then as part of a protection detail. Najib was still the deputy prime minister at the time.
In 2009, Azilah and another ex-commando, Sirul Azhar Umar, were found guilty of murdering Altantuya in 2006 but were released in 2013 on appeal.
Sirul, who fled to Australia prior to the 2015 Federal Court ruling, previously dangled a “tell-all” in return for a review of his death sentence but the government rejected this.
Najib has been circumstantially linked to the case before but there had been no direct connection until Azilah’s controversial claim. MALAY MAIL
Najib willing to risk divine retribution over Azilah’s SD
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak says he will be swearing a sumpah laknat this Friday, to deny the allegations against him made by convicted killer Azilah Hadri.
A sumpah laknat is an oath, beseeching God to curse those who are in the wrong.
Najib tweeted he will be swearing the oath at Masjid Jamek in Kampung Baru after Friday prayers this week.
Azilah, in a statutory declaration, claimed that the order to kill Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006 had come from Najib, who was the deputy prime minister at the time.
Azilah alleged that Najib and the latter’s close associate Abdul Razak Baginda convinced him that the Mongolian national was a foreign spy who posed a threat to national security.
In 2015, the Federal Court overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision to acquit Azilah and another former UTK personnel Sirul Azhar Umar’s conviction.
However, Sirul had fled to Australia after his acquittal and is currently in an immigration detention centre in Sydney.
Razak Baginda was charged with abetting the pair but was later discharged.
The decision not to appeal Razak Baginda’s acquittal and the trial process not establishing a motive for the murder as well as the prosecution’s failure to call Najib’s former aide de camp Musa Safri, whom Azilah claimed played a key role, to the witness stand led to speculation of a cover-up.
Najib has denied Azilah’s allegations, describing it as a complete fabrication and political plot to silence him.
MKINI
– MALAY MAIL / MKINI
Sumpah or not Bossmu, you still have to go to court to defend yourself if Azilah succeed in obtaining judicial review.
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