PUTRAJAYA: Former police commando Azilah Hadri, who was convicted of murdering Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu has escaped the gallows after the Federal Court commuted his death sentence, and may walk out a free man as early as 2034.
The Federal Court commuted his death sentence to 40 years’ jail yesterday and ordered that he be given the mandatory 12 strokes of the rotan.
Azilah was arrested on Nov 1, 2006, and, with a one-third remission, could be released in 10 years.
“We believe he will be out in 2034. That is after remission and his prison time since 2006,” his lawyer J. Kuldeep Kumar said after Azilah’s review application concluded yesterday.
According to Section 44 of the Prison Act 1995, which touches on remission of sentence, a prisoner sentenced to imprisonment of more than one month shall be entitled to be granted a one-third remission of his sentence.
The remission of the sentence is to encourage good conduct and facilitate reformative treatment.
Azilah was convicted in 2009 for the murder of Altantuya in October 2006.
Earlier in the day, a three-judge panel led by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat in substituting Azilah’s death sentence said there were strong mitigating factors and valid reasons for the court to exercise its discretion in favour of the applicant.
In the unanimous decision, Justice Tengku Maimun said the applicant had also provided affidavits that allowed the court to apply the proportionality principle in the sentencing.
These affidavits included a letter from Altantuya’s father, Dr Shaariibuu Setev, who had expressly supported Azilah’s application to have his death sentence commuted.
“We set aside the death sentence and substitute it with imprisonment for 40 years from the date of arrest, excluding the period where the applicant was released by the Court of Appeal, and 12 strokes (of the rotan),” she said.
Other judges on the Bench were Court of Appeal president Justice Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Federal Court judge Justice Nordin Hassan.
Before arriving at the judgment, the panel heard from parties on the mitigating and aggravating factors in the application.
Kuldeep Kumar told the court that his client was a good police officer who had carried out the murder under “instructions” from his superiors on the belief that he was doing a “covert operation” for national security.
He also said Azilah had thought Altantuya was a secret spy who had got hold of national secrets.
“That was the motive, the basis on which he carried out (the murder). These officers are indoctrinated, they cannot ‘ingkar perintah’ (disobey an order),” he added.
The lawyer also pointed out that despite the murder being a two-man job, Azilah was the only one who would be put to death as his co-accused, Kpl Sirul Azhar Umar, was “walking around a free man in Australia”.
“Sirul will never face justice,” Kuldeep Kumar said.
Meanwhile, deputy public prosecutor Datuk Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar said Azilah had committed a gruesome crime as the victim was shot and blown up to pieces.
“A human life was taken in a brutal manner and shocked the conscience of the community. It attracted the world’s attention because the victim was a foreigner,” he said.
In the widely-publicised case, Altantuya was abducted and shot dead in Shah Alam.
Her remains were then blown up with explosives, said to be C4.
Azilah and Sirul were convicted by the Shah Alam High Court in 2009.
The conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2013.
Both were free men for more than a year until the prosecution appealed the decision but, in the interim, Sirul had fled to Australia.
In 2015, the Federal Court upheld the High Court’s conviction and reinstated the death penalty on both men.
Sirul was later arrested by Australian immigration in January 2015 for overstaying, while Azilah has been in jail as a death row inmate since.
Azilah’s application for a review of his sentence came after the Mandatory Death Penalty Abolition Act 2023, came into effect on July 4 last year.
