How will Azilah Hadri prove Najib gave the order to kill?

Hence there would be a record of the time and date Azilah was alleged to have met Najib. If there is no record then no meeting took place. And if no meeting took place how did Najib instruct Azilah to kill Altantuya? Or did the order come through a “middleman” and not directly from Najib — which means it now becomes hearsay.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The police officer who was in charge of the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder investigation was Deputy Supt Gan Tack Guan. In 2008, Gan testified that the explosives used to blow up Altantuya’s body was not C4. I was there in court facing a charge of criminal defamation and my lawyer was Gobind Singh Deo.

Gobind was taken aback. He never saw that coming because what I said in my statutory declaration was that the husband-and-wife army officers had used C4 to blow up Altantuya’s body. If it was not C4 that was used then I was cooked because that would make my SD incorrect. Hence, I had made a false declaration and would be found guilty and would be sent to jail.

I used to have a close family member who was in the UTK (Unit Tindakan Khas or Special Actions Unit) that was set up during Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s time as PM4. This family member was, in fact, in the team that raided Anwar Ibrahim’s house and arrested him the night of 20th September 1998.

What he told me was very interesting. The order was actually to shoot to kill if Anwar offered any resistance. Arrest was not number one on the list of priorities.

He was not on duty that night but when he heard about the operation he volunteered to join the team. He knew that if he was not there they would most likely shoot to kill, using the excuse they were just protecting themselves from an unruly crowd that was threatening their lives (in fact, there was a crowd and it was unruly and the whole thing almost turned to bloodshed).

Anwar’s arrest in September 1998 was actually meant to be an assassination

But why raid Anwar’s house and arrest him when there was a huge crowd? Why not wait until the whole event was over and the crowd had gone home? They could have gone to Anwar’s house at 1.00am or 5.00am and catch Anwar sleeping in bed. Then there would be no reason for the SWAT or UTK team.

This was what they did with Bentong Kali. They waited till he was asleep and then rushed into his bedroom and shot him dead before he could open his eyes. He died even before he could wake up. Hence, they could have done the same with Anwar.

Obviously, they could not assassinate Anwar the way they assassinated Bentong Kali. They needed a justification and the unruly and threatening crowd would be a very good excuse. It would then he seen as a legitimate and justifiable kill.

Musa Safri was interrogated by the police but was never asked to testify at the trial

The only snag was that my close family member who had volunteered to join the UTK team that night wanted Anwar alive. So, he pulled Anwar aside and told him that unless he talks to the crowd and instructs them to calm down then Anwar was not going to leave his house alive. He also told Anwar he is there to ensure that Anwar will escape assassination.

Now, the Anwarists say the shoot to kill order came from Mahathir himself. My UTK family member said for extremely “sensitive” operations they have such a thing called chain of command. The team never deals with the Commander-in-Chief. It is always one level above. And there may even be many layers or many levels but that would not be known to the operatives.

So, for argument purposes, let us assume that Najib Tun Razak did, in fact, give the order to kill Altantuya. If that is true then Azilah Hadri, who was then just a chief inspector, would not know about it. He would take orders from one level higher than him and would not know how much higher this order came from.

Are they planning to declare a mistrial and then discharge Azilah and Sirul as ‘balasan’ for the SD?

If someone higher than Azilah, let us say Deputy Supt Musa Safri, gave the order to kill Altantuya, and let us say Musa told Azilah that the order came from Najib himself, then it becomes hearsay because he was told what someone else said and did not hear it from the person himself.

Hence if Azilah is saying that Najib personally instructed him to kill Altantuya then he must state when and where that happened. Did they meet in a dark alley? Did they meet in Najib’s house or Najib’s office?

For security reasons, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are under 24-7 surveillance, so there would be a record of all their movements and meetings. That was revealed during Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial back in 1999. That was why Anwar was found guilty — because he had a problem with his alibi the time the sodomy was supposed to have occurred (meaning his movement record placed him at the scene of the crime).

DSP Gan testified in court that it was not C4 that was used to blow up Altantuya but Pakatan Harapan leaders are misleading the public by saying it was C4

Hence there would be a record of the time and date Azilah was alleged to have met Najib. If there is no record then no meeting took place. And if no meeting took place how did Najib instruct Azilah to kill Altantuya? Or did the order come through a “middleman” and not directly from Najib — which means it now becomes hearsay.

Yes, the burden of proof is now on Azilah. Did he meet Najib personally and does he have proof of that meeting (such as records or tapes)? If not, then his testimony is worthless. And if it was not Najib who personally instructed him then who did? To establish that we need to establish the chain of command that the UTK works under.

And what about this so-called C4 story? Gan said it was not C4 that was used to blow up Altantuya. But the basis of the trial was that it was C4. Are they going to use this “error” to declare a mistrial and then discharge Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar? Is this the secret plan that they are working on to get Azilah and Sirul off the hook?