PUTRAJAYA, Oct 10 — Former police commando Azilah Hadri was “relieved” with the Federal Court’s decision today to grant his application for his death sentence to be reduced to imprisonment and caning over the 2006 murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, his lawyer said.
When met by reporters outside the courtroom after the Federal Court’s decision, Azilah’s lawyer J Kuldeep Kumar said of his client: “He was relieved.”
Azilah had through his lawyers applied for the Federal Court to replace his death penalty with 30 years’ jail. The 30 years’ jail time is the lowest number of years he could apply to the Federal Court for his death sentence to be replaced with under the existing laws in Malaysia.
The Federal Court decided to replace his death sentence with 40 years’ jail — which is the highest number of years it can impose under the current law as an alternative to death penalties for murder convicts in Malaysia.
Asked when Azilah will be able to be released from prison, Kuldeep said: “We believe it’s most probably in 2034, after remission.”
Speaking to the media, Azilah’s lawyer Athari Bahardin explained how the legal team arrived at this estimated calculation of 2034 as the earliest possible release date from prison.
Using the 40 years’ jail time, Athari said the calculations would then exclude the 16 years and three months that Azilah had already spent in prison since his November 1, 2006 arrest, as well as the one year four months and 21 days which Azilah had spent outside of prison in between August 2013 to January 2015.
He said that the calculations would then take into account the usual remission given to prisoners, and which would then mean Azilah could be released by 2034.
Prisoners are typically given a one-third remission or reduction of the jail time they have to serve, if they show good behaviour while in prison.
Azilah, 48, is currently a prisoner in the Sungai Buloh prison. If he is released by 2034, it would be the year when he is 58 years old.
Earlier today, Kuldeep read out in the Federal Court a letter by Altantuya’s father Shaariibuu Setev which supported Azilah’s application to replace his death penalty with imprisonment.
Speaking of Shaariibuu Setev’s letter which came via his lawyers, Kuldeep said: “We are grateful for what the father has done.”
Separately, Azilah had in April 2017 reportedly filed an application to the Selangor Sultan to ask for a royal pardon.
Athari today confirmed to reporters that the pardon application “is still pending in Selangor”.
When met outside the courtroom, Shaariibuu Setev’s lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo told reporters: “The 40 years, I think is fair, and that would be quite acceptable to the family. He is serving his sentence for an offence he did commit. It’s just that the family does not agree to the death penalty.”
Sangeet was asked why Altantuya’s father had made the move to send the letter supporting Azilah’s bid for jail time instead of being sentenced to death.
Sangeet explained that Altantuya’s father is against the death penalty, and had for some time now “indicated that he would support” the commutation of Azilah’s death sentence.
“He has always been a strong believer in the sanctity of life, whatever the circumstances may be, and he wanted me to put that on record, which he has done very nicely in his own letter, where he has certainly impressed on the sanctity of life,” she said.
She said Altantuya’s father had expressed such wishes a few months ago and sent the letter in August to his lawyers and that they then forwarded it to Azilah via his lawyers.
In the letter which was written in Mongolian and translated to English and addressed to Azilah’s lawyers, Altantuya’s father had asked for his backing of the reduction of Azilah’s death penalty to also be forwarded to Sirul Azhar Umar.
Sirul is the other former police commando who was convicted of Altantuya’s murder. Sirul did not show up in the Federal Court in 2015 when the duo’s convictions and death sentences were restored, and was later revealed to be in Australia and is believed to still be there.
Asked what Altantuya’s father meant by his letter in relation to Sirul, Sangeet said she believes that he meant to also support Sirul’s application if the latter ever chooses to apply for his death sentence to be replaced with jail time.
“Yes, I think he applies it equally to Sirul,” she said, later adding: “I imagine the same support would be extended to Sirul’s application as well.”
Asked if this was because Altantuya’s father’s support for the commutation of the death penalty could pave the way for Sirul to return to Malaysia, Sangeet replied: “I don’t think any of that is in my client’s mind. My client was acting according to his conscience and he supports the right to life.”
Recommended reading:
- Altantuya's father backs his daughter's convicted killer Azilah's bid to replace death sentence with jail time, caning
- Altantuya’s convicted killer Azilah avoids death penalty as Federal Court reviews sentence to 40 years and 12 strokes of cane
- Altantuya was murdered 18 years ago — Here’s what happened since, as Azilah sets to commute death penalty
