Federal Court to hear on Oct 21 Najib's bid to intervene in Azilah's review

The Federal Court will hear on Oct 21 former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's application to intervene in the review bid of former police commando Azilah Hadri against his conviction and death sentence for the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibu.

Federal Court deputy registrar Zarifah Zainal Abidin also fixed Dec 8 for hearing of Azilah Hadri's review application.

One of Azilah's lawyers, Athari Bahardin, who attended the case management today, told the media that Oct 28 has been fixed for case management of the review.

The matter came up before Zarifah for case management in chambers today.

Azilah was also represented by lawyer J. Kuldeep Kumar. Deputy public prosecutor Tengku Intan Suraya Tengku Ismail appeared for the prosecution while lawyer Sarah Abishegam, for Najib and lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo held a watching brief for Altantuya's family.

Athari said both Azilah and the prosecution are objecting to Najib's intervener application.

Azilah, who is on death row at Kajang Prison, filed his review application on Dec 5 last year together with his 32-page statutory declaration, which claims that the order to kill Altantuya had come from Najib, who was the deputy prime minister then.

Azilah, 43, is seeking to set aside his conviction and death sentence imposed by the Federal Court on Jan 13, 2015, and an order for retrial.

In December last year, lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told the media that his client Najib had totally denied everything that had been alleged by Azilah.

Azilah and Sirul Azhar Umar, 47, were convicted and sentenced to death by the Shah Alam High Court in 2009 for Altantuya's murder at Mukim Bukit Raja in Shah Alam between 10 pm on Oct 19 and 1 am the following day in 2006.

They were, however, discharged and acquitted by the Court of Appeal in 2013, which allowed their appeal to set aside their conviction and death sentence.

In 2015, the Federal Court overturned the acquittal of the two former police commandos and restored the High Court decision which convicted them of the murder.

-- BERNAMA