KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 — Former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Musa Hassan said today the men convicted of murdering Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu should have revealed their reasons for carrying out the crime when they were in the dock.
Musa, who was IGP during the October 2006 murder, also expressed hope that the police answer questions on the issue of the murder motive, saying there was nothing wrong in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad raising the matter.
“Tun Mahathir tidak melakukan kesalahn beliau menyuarakan pertanyaan harap penyiasatan polis dpt menjawab segala pertanyaan Tun,” he wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.
The Bahasa Malaysia message roughly translates to: “Tun Mahathir did not commit any wrong by raising questions. Hope a police probe can answer all of Tun’s questions”.
Musa’s statement prompted a few replies by a number of other Twitter users.
User @saladinMY asked the former national police chief: “So tell us why during ur time Police stopped short of investigating the motive?”.
Musa, however, denied this, and pointed out that a “full” probe had been carried out and resulted in three individuals charged in court.
The trio were former police commandos Sirul Azhar Umar and Azilah Hadri who were charged with murder, and political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, who was charged with abetting the duo.
Abdul Razak, a former political aide to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, was subsequently acquitted while Sirul and Azilah went on to be sentenced to hang for murder.
Twitter user @saladinMY later raised the question of motive, which was never established during the murder trial, and asked why two elite policemen “who had nothing to do with the Mongolian girl” decided to commit the crime and in such brutal fashion.
In reply, Musa wrote: “They shld reveal it in ct during the trial di mahkamah. Kalau begitu tanya org yg melakukannya.”
[Translation: They should reveal it in court during the trial. If that’s the case, ask the ones who did it]
Musa recently urged the police to reopen Altantuya’s murder case, saying it was necessary to do so to verify a claim made by Sirul that he had killed her under orders.
The former police commando, who is currently held in Australia, recently told Malaysiakini in an interview that he is considering revealing why he and another former police commando shot dead the Mongolian model and blew her body up with explosives.
Apart from claiming that he had merely acted under orders then, he also said that the Federal Court should have called his then-superior, deputy superintendent Musa Safri, to testify.
