MONGOLIAN model cum interpreter Altantuya Shaariibuu was killed in 2006 on the direct order of then deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and his special officer at the time, Abdul Razak Baginda, the man convicted of the murder said in a statutory declaration.

Former police commando Azilah Hadri, one of two men found guilty of the crime, said this in a October 17 sworn statement obtained by Malaysiakini.

In the statement, Azilah notes down the chronology of events leading to the murder, beginning with when he first received the instruction to kill Altantuya, who was described to him as a dangerous spy and a good liar.

Azilah said he received the instructions to kill the woman directly from Najib on October 17, 2006, while he was on duty as a member of Najib’s security detail at his residence in Sri Kenangan, Pekan, Pahang. Najib was then, and still is, the Pekan MP.

‘Removes the traces’

Azilah said he was called into a room where the deputy prime minister (DPM) was waiting to talk to him. He was told to see Najib by DSP Musa Safri, who was the aide-de-camp at the time.

In the room, Najib told Azilah he had a confidential assignment for him concerning a foreign spy, in Kuala Lumpur.

“The DPM then instructed me to carry out a covert operation to arrest and destroy the spy secretly and destroy her body using explosives,” Azilah said in his declaration, according to the English translation.

“I asked the DPM what he meant by ‘arrest and destroy the foreign spy’ and he responded: Shoot to kill,” while showing the sign to cut the throat, he said.

Azilah said Najib explained that explosives should be used so as to “dispose of the foreign spy’s body… to remove the traces”.

The former police chief inspector, 43, said he tried to suggest that the spy be arrested and expelled instead, but Najib did not agree with him.

He said Najib gave him a white Samsung mobile phone for contacting him directly. The phone was to be thrown away after the covert operation was completed.

Azilah said when he returned to Kuala Lumpur the following day, on October 18, he contacted Razak Baginda and met him at Bangunan Getah Asli.

There, Razak Baginda repeated the same instructions to kill Altantuya and confirmed with Azilah that the order came from the deputy prime minister.

He told Azilah that Musa had suggested to Najib that Azilah was the man for the job and that a private investigator called P. Balasubramaniam had been engaged to monitor Altantuya’s movements.

Razak Baginda assured Azilah at the meeting that Najib would back him, when the former commando expressed concerns about the legality of the covert mission.

‘Mr Razak’ ordered this

Azilah in his declaration also recounted how he roped in fellow commando Sirul Azhar Umar for the job, and that for that he had obtained permission from Razak Baginda, Musa and Najib.

Sirul was assigned to obtaining explosives from the Unit Tindakan Khas armoury.

The next night, on October 19, the two commandos executed their mission after taking Altantuya away from outside Razak Baginda’s house in Bukit Damansara.

Azilah said Altantuya declared before she was killed that she knew it was a “Mr Razak” who had ordered her execution. Azilah said he asked her who she meant, and Altantuya replied “deputy prime minister”.

Things started to unravel on October 31, when police opened an inquiry into a commotion that was reported to have taken place on the night of October 21 outside Razak Baginda’s house. Two women  had shown up at the address in search of their missing friend, Altantuya.

In the subsequent police interrogation about his involvement, Azilah said he “held on to the assurance given by Musa not to implicate the good name of the DPM”. ‘

“I would not have carried out this covert operation to kill and eliminate the deceased if it were not for the instructions from the DPM, who was also defence minister at the time.

“I was also convinced by Musa that this covert operation was absolutely essential for the security of the country, which I, as a public servant, had in good faith carried out his instructions,” he said.

Full retrial

Azilah wrote the statement in Kajang Prison, where he is on death row.

Azilah and Sirul were convicted of Altantuya’s murder and sentenced to death by the Federal Court in 2015. The Court of Appeal previously overturned the High Court’s conviction of the two for murder.

In an affidavit filed together with the statutory declaration, Azilah said that evidence and material facts were suppressed during the trials at the High Court and Court of Appeal.

He wants the Federal Court to review his and Sirul’s conviction and death sentence and a full retrial.

Sirul fled Malaysia in 2014 for Australia, where he has since been held at a detention centre in Sydney.

Azilah said in his affidavit that he had wanted to make a statutory declaration last year but delayed it to after the 2018 general election as he did not want it to be “misused”.  – December 16, 2019.