Altantuya case: Court allows ex-cop to appeal conviction
Ida Lim, TMI
The Court of Appeal today allowed an application by former policeman Sirul Azhar Umar to appeal his conviction for the 2006 murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu on the grounds that there has been a mistrial.
Sirul’s lawyer Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin said they are now seeking a declaration of the 2009 decision as a mistrial based on two new and related grounds, namely the adverse publicity and the “real and possible” danger that the High Court judge’s impartiality was affected by the said publicity.
“We have brought in an application this morning. That application is to include two new grounds in the petition of appeal.
“The court has allowed the application,” he told reporters when met outside the courtroom.
Kamarul said he will be filing the application by tomorrow.
He also clarified that the other appellant, former Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, was not part of this application and had not made a similar application to introduce these grounds.
The three-day appeal hearing, initially set to begin from today, has been postponed to June 24.
Kamarul told reporters that the case was postponed because the Court of Appeal wanted to view Karpal Singh’s 2008 application to call Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and a few others and recall former private investigator P. Balasubramaniam as witnesses in relation to the latter’s two conflicting statutory declarations.
Kamarul told the court today that the Shah Alam High Court had heard and dismissed Karpal’s application on July 23, 2008.
Karpal was then holding a watching brief for Altantuya’s family and the Mongolian government.
