MALAYSIA: FEDERAL COURT SENTENCES COPS TO DEATH FOR MURDER OF MONGOLIAN MODEL

Two former police commandos were sentenced to death after the Federal Court allowed the government’s appeal over the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006.
Federal Court judge Suriyadi Halim Omar said the prosecution had proved its case to implicate Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azahar with the charge that carried the death penalty.
“As such, the Court of Appeal was wrong in reversing the findings of the trial court to free them,” said Mr Suriyadi, who is a member of the five-man bench to hear the final appeal.
On August 23, 2013, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeals brought by Azilah and Sirul and acquitted them.
Four years earlier, High Court judge Zaki Mohd Yassin found the two guilty and sentenced them to death.
Evidence in court revealed that the Mongolian translator was either murdered by C4 explosives or was killed first and the remains destroyed on October 18, 2006, in the outskirts of Shah Alam, near capital city Kuala Lumpur.