KUALA LUMPURI, Nov 25 — Lawyer Datuk Hasnal Rezua Merican has denied all claims made by his former client, Sirul Azhar Umar, one where he allegedly instructed the former policeman to make a video exonerating a former prime minister of any involvement in the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Hasnal also rejected Sirul’s claim in an interview aired yesterday with Qatar-headquartered broadcaster Aljazeera, that his Malaysian lawyer had paid him RM1 million to do so, news portal Free Malaysia Today reported last night.
“There is absolutely no truth to all the allegations he has made. I visited Sirul six to seven times during his incarceration in Australia as his lawyer. I can’t recall but the last time I met him may have been in 2017 or 2018
“It is too early to take any steps as the allegations were made and circulated in Australia,” Hasnal was quoted as saying.
Hasnal is a also a member of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia.
Yesterday, Aljazeera English’s 101 East programme aired an exclusive interview with Sirul in Canberra, Australia, said to be his first media appearance since his release from detention more than a week ago.
The now 51-year-old convicted former police commando had fled to Australia to escape a death sentence in Malaysia for the murder of Altantuya.
In the interview, Sirul claimed that he was made a scapegoat and was caught in a political game where he was paid a large sum of money by Hasnal to exonerate former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak from any links to the brutal murder in 2006.
Sirul claimed not to know the original source of the money when asked in the interview.
Sirul was released from the Australia’s detention centre last week after spending almost a decade inside.
His release, alongside 91 others, was seen by human rights lawyers as a landmark ruling that ended a two-decade immigration law that allowed the Australian authorities to detain foreign citizens indefinitely who cannot be deported back.
The Australian government has a policy against deporting anyone to a country where they would face the death penalty.
Sirul was Najib’s former bodyguard, together with fellow police Special Action Unit commando Azilah Hadri.
Both were sentenced to death in 2009 for the October 2006 murder of Altantuya in a gruesome case that garnered national interest and fuelled political conspiracy theories that remain popular to this day.
In 2007, Altantuya’s father Shaariibuu Setev and his wife Altantsetseg Sanjaa, as well as two of their grandsons Mungunshagai Bayarjargal and Altanshagai Munkhtulga filed a RM100 million lawsuit against Azilah and Sirul.
Sirul and Azilah succeeded in overturning their conviction at the Court of Appeal in 2013, but the Federal Court in 2015 restored their conviction and death sentence.
