PM smiles, shakes head when asked if he met Azilah

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad shook his head and smiled when asked by reporters if he had met convicted murderer Azilah Hadri.

Posed with this question at a press conference Putrajaya today, Mahathir promptly stood up and left the venue.

Prior to that, Mahathir was fielding questions on Bandar Malaysia which was the main topic of the press conference.

Earlier today, lawyer Shafee Abdullah claimed that Azilah had met a VVIP outside from the Kajang prison in February.

His claim followed an explosive statutory declaration by Azilah claiming that he had killed Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu on the orders of then deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and his associate Abdul Razak Baginda.

Shafee also claimed that several people, including agents of the Malaysian government, had also gone to Australia to meet former UTK personnel Sirul Azhar Umar, under immigration detention there, to persuade him to come up with a statement against Najib.

Najib has denied knowing Altantuya, and dismissed Azilah's statutory declaration as a "pure fabrication".

Previously, in June last year, Sirul had written to Mahathir, asking for clemency in exchange for revealing all on the Altantuya murder.

The letter was delivered through Mahathir's supporter Khairuddin Abu Hassan who had gone to visit Sirul.

In 2015, Mahathir had also met with Sirul's mother at the Perdana Leadership Foundation in Putrajaya.

This followed his stinging blog posting against Najib for evading answering questions, including about the murder of Altantuya

Mahathir had questioned who had ordered the killing of Altantuya, following Sirul's exclusive interview with Malaysiakini in which the former police commando admitted he acted under orders and had been made a scapegoat and that the real person involved in the crime was still out there.

- Mkini