PUTRAJAYA, March 20 — The hearing of former police commando Azilah Hadri’s review application to set aside his conviction and death sentence for the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu in the Federal Court remains as scheduled on April 20.
Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s application to intervene in Azilah’s review application is also fixed for hearing on the same day, according to the court document relating to the case sighted by Bernama.
According to document, the Attorney-General’s Chambers were required to submit their respective affidavits in reply to the review application and to Najib’s intervener application by March 26, and Azilah must file his respective affidavit-in-reply by April 10 for both applications.
Parties in the case were also required to submit their respective written submissions before April 6.
During case management on Tuesday, lawyer J. Kuldeep Kumar for Azilah told media that his client is objecting to Najib intervening in his review application.
Deputy public prosecutor Muhammad Azmi Mashud, who appeared for the prosecution and who also attended the case management, meanwhile had said his instruction was to object to Najib’s intervener application and also oppose to Azilah’s review application.
Azilah who is currently on death row at Kajang Prison, filed his review application on December 5, last year together with his 32-paged statutory declaration which he claimed that the order to kill Altantuya had come from the former prime minister (Najib) who was deputy prime minister then.
Azilah, 43, is seeking to set aside his conviction and death sentence imposed by the Federal Court on Jan 13, 2015 and an order for a retrial.
In December, last year, lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told the media that his client, Najib had totally denied everything that had been alleged by Azilah.
Azilah and Sirul Azhar Umar, 47, were convicted and sentenced to death by the Shah Alam High Court in 2009 for Altantuya’s murder at Mukim Bukit Raja in Shah Alam between 10pm on October 19 and 1am the following day in 2006.
They were however discharged and acquitted by the Court of Appeal in 2013 which allowed their appeal to set aside their conviction and death sentence.
In 2015, the Federal Court overturned the acquittal of the two police commandos and restored the High Court decision to find them guilty for the offence. — Bernama
