Altantuya’s father supported Azilah’s bid for jail time instead of being sentenced to death.
Former police commando Azilah Hadri was “relieved” with the Federal Court’s decision today to grant his application for his death sentence to be reduced to imprisonment and caning over the 2006 murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, his lawyer said.
When met by reporters outside the courtroom after the Federal Court’s decision, Azilah’s lawyer J Kuldeep Kumar said of his client: “He was relieved.”
Azilah had through his lawyers applied for the Federal Court to replace his death penalty with 30 years’ jail. The 30 years’ jail time is the lowest number of years he could apply to the Federal Court for his death sentence to be replaced under the existing laws in Malaysia.
The Federal Court decided to replace his death sentence with 40 years in jail — which is the highest number of years it can impose under the current law as an alternative to death penalties for murder convicts in Malaysia.
Asked when Azilah will be able to be released from prison, Kuldeep said: “We believe it’s most probably in 2034, after remission.”
Speaking to the media, Azilah’s lawyer Athari Bahardin explained how the legal team arrived at this estimated calculation of 2034 as the earliest possible release date from prison.
Using the 40 years’ jail time, Athari said the calculations would then exclude the 16 years and three months that Azilah had already spent in prison since his November 1, 2006, arrest, as well as the one year four months and 21 days which Azilah had spent outside of prison in between August 2013 to January 2015.
He said that the calculations would then consider the usual remission given to prisoners, which would mean Azilah could be released by 2034.
Prisoners are typically given a one-third remission or reduction of the jail time they have to serve if they show good behaviour while in prison.
Azilah, 48, is currently a prisoner in the Sungai Buloh prison. If he is released by 2034, it would be the year when he is 58 years old.
Earlier today, Kuldeep read out in the Federal Court a letter by Altantuya’s father Shaariibuu Setev which supported Azilah’s application to replace his death penalty with imprisonment.
Speaking of Shaariibuu Setev’s letter which came via his lawyers, Kuldeep said: “We are grateful for what the father has done.”
Separately, Azilah had in April 2017 reportedly filed an application to the Selangor Sultan to ask for a royal pardon.
Athari today confirmed to reporters that the pardon application “is still pending in Selangor”.
When met outside the courtroom, Shaariibuu Setev’s lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo told reporters: “The 40 years, I think is fair, and that would be quite acceptable to the family. He is serving his sentence for an offence he did commit. It’s just that the family does not agree to the death penalty.”
Sangeet was asked why Altantuya’s father had made the move to send the letter supporting Azilah’s bid for jail time instead of being sentenced to death.
Sangeet explained that Altantuya’s father is against the death penalty and had for some time now “indicated that he would support” the commutation of Azilah’s death sentence.
“He has always been a strong believer in the sanctity of life, whatever the circumstances may be, and he wanted me to put that on record, which he has done very nicely in his own letter, where he has certainly impressed on the sanctity of life,” she said.
She said Altantuya’s father had expressed such wishes a few months ago and sent the letter in August to his lawyers and that they then forwarded it to Azilah via his lawyers.
In the letter written in Mongolian and translated to English and addressed to Azilah’s lawyers, Altantuya’s father had asked for his backing of the reduction of Azilah’s death penalty to also be forwarded to Sirul Azhar Umar.
Sirul is the other former police commando who was convicted of Altantuya’s murder. Sirul did not show up in the Federal Court in 2015 when the duo’s convictions and death sentences were restored and was later revealed to be in Australia and is believed to still be there.
Asked what Altantuya’s father meant by his letter about Sirul, Sangeet said she believes that he meant to also support Sirul’s application if the latter ever chooses to apply for his death sentence to be replaced with jail time.
“Yes, I think he applies it equally to Sirul,” she said, later adding: “I imagine the same support would be extended to Sirul’s application as well.”
Asked if this was because Altantuya’s father’s support for the commutation of the death penalty could pave the way for Sirul to return to Malaysia, Sangeet replied: “I don’t think any of that is in my client’s mind. My client was acting according to his conscience, and he supports the right to life.”
Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who chaired the Federal Court’s three-judge panel, delivered the panel’s unanimous decision to allow Azilah’s application to commute his death sentence to jail time and 12 strokes of the cane instead.
The other two judges on the Federal Court panel are the President of the Court of Appeal Datuk Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Federal Court Judge Datuk Nordin Hassan.
Following the Federal Court’s decision, Azilah’s lawyers J Kuldeep Kumar and Athari Bahardin confirmed to reporters that the earliest that their client can expect to be released from prison is in 2034.
This calculation is based on Azilah’s lawyers taking into account the typical one-third remission or reduction of jail term for prisoners on good behaviour, and also the 16 years and three months that Azilah had already spent in jail since his November 1, 2006 arrest; and also, after excluding a period of one year and four months during 2013 to 2015 when Azilah was acquitted by the Court of Appeal.
Azilah will be 58 years old in 2034.
Azilah, now 48, has been on death row in prison for the past nine years after the Federal Court in 2015 decided to uphold his conviction.
Azilah was aged 30 and the chief inspector with the police’s special action unit (UTK) when he was charged in 2006 with the murder, and was aged 39 when the Federal Court decided that both he and fellow police commando Sirul Azhar Umar were guilty of the crime.
At the time of Azilah’s conviction for murdering Altantuya, the punishment under the Penal Code’s Section 302 was a mandatory death sentence. This means the courts had no discretion to hand down alternative sentences.
After Malaysia changed its laws last year, the courts can now choose to decide whether to sentence a person who committed murder with either the death penalty; or between 30 to 40 years of jail and at least 12 strokes of the cane.
Following the changes to Malaysian law, prisoners in Malaysia who were sentenced to death for murder — including Azilah — had applied to the Federal Court to review their sentences.