KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 — Lawyers of all vested parties should gather to negotiate the scope of any possible reinvestigation into the 2006 murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang said today.
The DAP leader suggested that this was the best way forward given Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s purported desire for a renewed probe after the latter was accused of directly ordering the murder of the Mongolian by a former former police commando.
“If Najib wants Altantuya’s murder to be re-investigated, a meeting of the lawyers of the interested parties representing Najib, Altantuya’s family, detective P. Bala’s family, businessman J. Deepak, Attorney General and others can be convened to consider how best this reinvestigation could be done,” Lim said in a statement today.
Yesterday, lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah asserted that Najib was open to reopening the investigation as this would exonerate his client of the claims levelled at him by Azilah Hadri, one of two former Special Actions Unit officers sentenced to death for the murder.
Azilah made a statutory declaration that was released this week in support of his application for the Federal Court to review its 2015 decision to uphold his conviction along with that of Sirul Azhar Umar.
Azilah and Sirul had been part of Najib’s protection detail at the time of the murder.
Najib has been circumstantially linked to the case before but there had been no direct connection until Azilah’s controversial claim.
In 2009, Azilah and Sirul 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.
Altantuya’s family has filed a RM100 million civil suit against the government claiming wrongful death.
