The end of the murder trial of the century in the Shah Alam High Court this morning, with policemen Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar found guilty and sentenced to death for murdering Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, and then blowing up her body in a jungle clearing on Oct 19, 2006, is not going to end public fixation with any Altantuya-Najib nexus in national and international circles.
The question that is inevitably asked is who could be behind the two Bukit Aman Special Action Squad (UTK) cops’ C4 murder of Altantuya.
Those who had thought that the end of the Altantuya murder trial, with the conviction and death sentence pronounced on Azila and Sirul, would end national and international fixation with any connection of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak with the Altantuya murder case cannot be more wrong.
While Azilah and Sirul would appeal against the mandatory death sentence upon conviction under Section 149 of the Penal Code, their conviction and death sentence have not lessened but intensified public demands and necessity for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into swirling allegations of Najib’s involvement in the Altantuya’s C4 murder case.
At 3 pm today, Najib is announcing his new Cabinet – but this important event in his six-day premiership, which is already marred by the two Umno/Barisan Nasional defeats in the Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau by-elections, is totally overshadowed by the Altantuya murder case conviction and death sentences.
As Najib has repeatedly declared his innocence of any involvement in the Altantuya C4 murder case, he must act decisively to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry to lay all the swirling allegations about his involvement in the murder case which are haunting and hounding him, his administration and the nation’s good name, to rest once and for all – whether about the accessibility of C4 explosives, the disappearance of Altantuya immigration records, the exchange of SMS messages or the disappearance of private investigator Bala Subramaniam after making public a very damaging statutory declaration about Najib.