Roundtable Conference of concerned MPs, NGOs and NGIs to outline the contours of Parliamentary Inquiry into Altantunya Murder or alternatives before Parliament reconvenes on March 9 being considered by the DAP Legal Bureau

I have received positive and favourable response to the suggestion for an all-party Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the many unresolved but important and critical public interest questions on the Altantunya Shaariibu Murder Case, despite the end of the Altantuya murder trial and the conviction of two elite policemen Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar of the Special Action Unit (UTK) for the murder and their death sentence.

Many however are not sanguine that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Najib and his Cabinet would agree to the proposal for an all-party Parliamentary Committee into the Altantuya Murder, even if the parliamentary committee is headed by a Barisan Nasional MP.

Najib and his Cabinet has a month before Parliament reconvenes on March 9 to decide whether to endorse the establishment of an all-party Parliamentary Committee on Altantunya Murder.

If the Najib Government is not prepared to agree to a Parliamentary Committee or any other form of public investigation into the Altantunya Murder, then the alternatives will have to be explored, including a hybrid of a Parliamentary-Civil Society Inquiry Committee comprising MPs from both the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat and the civil society (both NGOs and NGIs) who believe that good conscience, national interests and our international reputation for justice, the rule of law and good governance demand that the answers to the many outstanding public interest questions about the Altantuya Murder case must be ascertained.

With the victim a Mongolian and one of the convicted murderers Sirul Azhar Umar holding out in Australia refusing to return to the death row in the country, the inquiry into the unresolved public interest issues in the Altantuya Murder Case will become an international one.

A key witness in any such inquiry will be Abdul Razak Baginda, who was acquitted of the charge of abetment in the murder of Altantuya without his defence being called.

Will he volunteer to fully co-operate with such an inquiry, to establish beyond a shadow of doubt his recent assertion in The Malaysian Insider that Altantuyna’s death was “just a straightforward murder case” and to vindicate his shocking statement: "Only the two policemen know. Rogue police do kill people, like in so many remand cases."

Were Azila and Sirul “rogue policemen”?

How did two police elite commandos become “rogue policemen”?

Is it really true that only Azila and Sirul know why Altantuya was murdered?

In his exclusive interview with The Malaysian Insider last Thursday, Razak said the Altantunya murder case had gone to the point of being extremely ridiculous.

He said: "The situation has become quite ridiculous in terms of the speculations. It is much of the same speculation but now, more twisted because we have reached the end of a long legal process.”

He said that if Altantunya’s death is just treated as a murder and do not politicize it, then it is a straightforward murder case.

Is Razak prepared to co-operate with an inquiry to de-politicise the Mongolian death and straighten out the twists and turns of the Altantuya murder case?

Razak had insisted that the two policemen had acted on their own accord when committing the murder, adding that “this was determined by the court”.

Razak should not be so naïve as to believe that the courts have concluded that there was no motive in the murder of Altantunya, only that there was no need to go into the question of motives to find Azila and Sirul guilty of Altantuya’s murder.

The question of the motive for Altantuya’s murder remain very much an open question, and the subject will not be closed unless there is a full and thorough inquiry specifically on the subject – which an inquiry, whether Parliamentary or a hybrid of parliamentary-civil society inquiry may be able to do.

I have asked the DAP Legal Bureau, headed by the DAP MP for Puchong, Gobind Singh Deo to be responsible for preparing a case for Parliamentary inquiry into the Altantuya Murder, and to list out the outstanding public interest issues which should be pursued.

Former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of legal affairs and judicial reform, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, in his recent article “Many questions remain on Altantuya murder” has canvassed some of these outstanding public interest questions which must be answered if there is going to be , “closure to this gruesome and senseless murder”, including:

• why she was killed in the first place;
• was she killed by Azilah and Sirul under the instruction of somebody else;
• Was the offer of RM100,000 to Sirul (going by Sirul’s own admission) true, and who made the offer;
• Why were there changes to the prosecutors and the High Court judge hearing the case;
• Why private investigator P Balasubramaniam (or PI Bala) and his family were asked to leave the country;
• How did Federal Court judge Suryadi Halim Omar know that Prime Minister Najib’s former aide-de-camp DSP Musa Safri never instructed Azilah on how to assist Razak Baginda, that Azilah was merely told to meet with Razak;
• Why the Attorney-General chose not to call Musa to testify during the trial.

A Roundtable Conference involving all concerned Malaysians before Parliament reconvenes on March 9 to outline the contours of such an inquiry is being studied by Gobind and the DAP Legal Bureau.

Will Razak undertake to give full co-operation to any such Roundtable Conference and inquiry into the Altantuya Murder case, so that only truth, and nothing but the truth, could be known about the heinous murder by two elite policemen?