Accused of ordering Altantuya’s murder, Najib to swear his denial
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak said he will swear a religious oath to deny a former police commando’s statutory declaration that the former prime minister ordered him to kill Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Najib announced his intention his Facebook page today.
“I intend to perform the sumpah laknat to deny the allegations contained in Azilah Hadri’s statutory declaration.
“I will perform this at Masjid Jamek in Kampung Baru here in the capital after Friday prayers,” he said.
The sumpah laknat is a sacred oath done in the name of God, beseeching divine retribution to fall on the wrong party, which some Muslims occasionally use as emphatic denials.
Azilah made a statutory declaration that was released this week in support of his application for a review of the Federal Court’s 2015 decision to uphold his conviction.
In it, the former commando claimed he was ordered to kill Altantuya directly by Najib, to whom he had been assigned then as part of a protection detail. Najib was still the deputy prime minister at the time.
In 2009, Azilah and another ex-commando, Sirul Azhar Umar, were found guilty of murdering Altantuya in 2006 but were released in 2013 on appeal.
Sirul, who fled to Australia prior to the 2015 Federal Court ruling, previously dangled a “tell-all” in return for a review of his death sentence but the government rejected this.
Najib has been circumstantially linked to the case before but there had been no direct connection until Azilah’s controversial claim.
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