Canberra, Australia – For the previous 9 years, Sirul Azhar Umar, 52, was locked up in an Australian detention centre for overstaying a vacationer visa.
On November 8, 2023, Australia’s Excessive Courtroom dominated it was unlawful to indefinitely detain non-citizens who couldn’t be deported.
The previous policeman was one such detainee and was subsequently freed. Sirul was sentenced to demise in his homeland of Malaysia for the brutal homicide of a 28-year-old Mongolian translator in 2006, however Australian legislation forbids the return of foreigners to nations the place they face the demise penalty.
Now dwelling in Australia’s capital, Canberra, along with his 23-year-old son, for the primary time, Sirul talks in regards to the homicide he was convicted of in an unique interview with Al Jazeera’s 101 East.
The homicide
One night time in October 2006, Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu was kidnapped from her former lover’s residence, and pushed to a jungle on the outskirts of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, the place she was shot and blown up with military-grade explosives.
The abductors had been Sirul and his superior officer, Azilah Hadri, each members of the elite safety element for Malaysia’s then-deputy prime minister, Najib Razak.
“Azilah told me this [was a] special operation for … Mr Najib,” Sirul says. “And I just obey because he is my superior.”
Shaariibuu’s ex-lover was Abdul Razak Baginda, an adviser and confidant of Najib.
Baginda brokered an allegedly corrupt billion-dollar submarine deal between Malaysia and France that was signed off by Najib when he was defence minister in 2002.
Shaariibuu had accompanied Baginda to Paris, and in 2006, was allegedly pushing for the $500,000 she was owed for aiding with the deal.
“Azilah told me, ‘This girl is disturbing Razak’,” Sirul recollects, insisting he was by no means on the homicide scene and that the final time he noticed Shaariibuu she was nonetheless alive.
“I didn’t do murder. But yes, I’m involved. I get [her] from Razak Baginda’s house,” he says. “And then I gave [her] to Azilah … and then … I don’t know nothing.”
No motive
The bodyguards had been discovered responsible of Shaariibuu’s homicide in 2009 and sentenced to demise however no motive has ever been established.
Based on a police assertion, which the Malaysian courtroom deemed involuntary and, subsequently, inadmissible, Sirul confessed to capturing Shaariibuu within the left aspect of her head.
However in an unsworn assertion to the courtroom, he stated he was a “scapegoat to protect … those who were not in court”.
Baginda was charged with abetting the homicide however by no means stood trial, a committal courtroom discovering he had no case to reply.
In 2013, Sirul’s conviction was overturned however when it was reinstated on attraction two years later, he was in Australia staying with family.
Days later, Sirul despatched an SMS message seen by 101 East to a politically linked businessman in Malaysia, Abdul Salam Bin Ahmad, demanding hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
“Greetings boss. I am in difficulties here. I want 2 million Australian dollars before boss [you] come to meet me. I need to guarantee the future of my child here, after that I want 15 million…. Australia. I will not return to Malaysia not ever boss. I won’t bring down the PM,” he wrote.
However Sirul now says the SMS was not his thought, claiming, “I had instructions from Mr Salam”. In his response, Salam wrote, “They will discuss”. Based on Sirul, he was referring to Najib. “The point is to get some money or something from Najib,” he says.
Sirul claims to have been manipulated for political functions ever for the reason that homicide.
Paid for silence
In 2016, whereas in an Australian immigration detention centre, Sirul recorded and circulated a video absolving Najib of any involvement in Shaariibuu’s homicide.
“Dato’ Seri Najib Razak was not involved and has no relevance to the case,” he stated within the video.
Now, he claims, he needs to “tell the truth”.
“This is Australia. Anybody can talk, isn’t it?” he says. “I want to expose and [tell] the truth now.”
Sirul claims he obtained greater than $200,000 to make the video. “My solicitor was offering me a lot of money,” he says.
“So that they provided and gave me some cash. I spent for my son, as a result of I like my son. My son goes to develop up right here … spend some huge cash, research right here [in Australia], every part. And my daughter, as properly.
“Until now, I have somebody [who] controls me. ‘Umar, you don’t talk. You keep silent’.”
He claims he’s unaware who paid him the cash, including that he’d by no means paid his legal professionals in Malaysia or Australia.
However he’s clear about who he was supposed to guard along with his silence.
“Honestly, I’m going to tell you specifically, to protect … prime minister at that time, Mr Najib.”
Sirul says he’s uncertain precisely why the hush cash was paid, however suggests what he might reveal about his conversations with Azilah would have had political penalties for Najib. Regardless of Najib’s denials of any involvement within the homicide, widespread hypothesis linking him to Shaariibuu’s killing plagued his political profession.
Sirul asserts that proof introduced to the courtroom was all “planted”, denying any information of Shaariibuu’s jewelry present in his jacket in his wardrobe and bloodstained slippers present in his automobile.
He cites the attraction courtroom’s choice in 2013 to overturn his 2009 conviction as proof the proof towards him was weak and goes on to take a position that Najib interfered within the courtroom to make sure the conviction was reinstated in 2015. “They have nobody guilty,” he says.
Perilous freedom
Two days after his launch from immigration detention on November 11, he tells 101 East, he had already had conferences with a Malaysian police intelligence officer connected to Malaysia’s excessive fee and was informed that it had reassured Australia’s international minister that he posed no menace to the Australian neighborhood.
He claims to be in common contact with the intelligence officer and his former police colleagues. “I’m still in contact with my group. I have a WhatsApp group, around 300 people. My friends all from special unit,” he explains.
Whereas there may be debate in Malaysia about the potential of extraditing him and debate in Australia in regards to the menace to the neighborhood after the discharge of quite a few convicted criminals from detention, Sirul’s freedom is fragile.
Quickly after the Excessive Courtroom’s choice, the Australian parliament rushed by emergency legal guidelines to permit authorities to make use of digital ankle bracelets and curfews to observe the freed detainees.
Opposition immigration spokesman, Dan Tehan, says that’s not sufficient.
“I think he [Sirul] needs to go back to Malaysia. And so, I would ask the Malaysian government to drop the death penalty so that we can send him back.”
However that’s the very last thing Sirul needs to occur, claiming, “I feel in danger there because I’m aware that it’s truly unsafe for me to return there … Whatever happens, I want to build a life with my child here in Australia.”
Apology
And he had this to say to Shaariibuu’s household: “I’m going to apologise to the family of the deceased. You know, Altantuya. Please forgive me.”
Shaariibuu’s two sons grew up with out their mom. One in every of them, who was severely disabled, is now lifeless. In the meantime, her father continues to battle for justice.
“Nothing can replace a mother’s love and care for her children – nothing. Altantuya’s life was taken away; she was executed. Someday, those people who did this crime will be punished,” Shaariibuu Setev, Altantuya’s father, informed Al Jazeera in 2015.
In December 2022, a Malaysian civil courtroom ordered the federal government, Abdul Razak Baginda and the 2 convicted policemen to pay $1m in damages to Shaariibuu’s household, however the authorities and Baginda have appealed the choice. Shaariibuu’s household have additionally filed an attraction for higher compensation having initially requested the courtroom for greater than $20m.
101 East approached Sirul’s lawyer, Hasnal Rezua Merican, businessman Abdul Salam bin Ahmad, in addition to the Australian international minister and the Malaysian Excessive Fee for touch upon the previous bodyguard’s claims, however obtained no responses.
Najib is serving a 12-year jail sentence for corruption and abuse of energy and couldn’t be reached for remark.
