A Book's Due, I Say

Former Bukit Aman Special Action Squad members Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar have been freed over the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.

I’m wondering now as to what will happen next to the duo.

Seven years is a fairly long period of time to be reminiscing over the whole thing and with all the speculations brewing with no closure in sight, Azilah and Sirul should get a ghostwriter to put pen to paper.

But seriously, we should have seen their release coming, shouldn’t we?

So many mis-or-non directions were made during the trial - something which the Court of Appeal addressed in its judgment – that would have made any conviction unsafe anyway.

And, as The Malaysian Insider paraphrased it: The court also found that the trial judge made no finding on whether the prosecution has established that there was a pre-arranged plan by the appellants to commit murder.

Is this in reference to the motive thingy? On the "WHY?"?

More legal-centric minds would be able to decipher this. 

So, what now?

Final Verdict

A filepix of the murdered victim

High Court Judge Mohd Zaki Md Yasin today found Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri,32, and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, 36, guilty for killing for the muder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu three years ago and sentenced to death.

Mohd Zaki said that the two failed to cast any doubt on the prosecution's case.

Based purely on the tried cases (and disregarding rumours, innuendos, conspiracy theories et cetera), we now know as “fact” the following regarding the murdered Mongolian translator/analyst girlfriend/victim:

The who: Azilah and Sirul

The when: between 10 pm, Oct 19 and 1 am, Oct 20, 2006

The where: between Lot 12843 and Lot 16735 Mukim Bukit Raja

And the how: gunshots followed by explosives.

What’s left is the question WHY.

Just WHAT WAS IT that made the two men shoot the deceased and then blow her body to smithereens?

The Prosecution submitted the murder was pre-planned and thus there must be a WHY in place for the two to painstakingly plan out the crime put into effect that night.

In what must be the the basest of crimes against mankind, there is almost always a WHY: hatred, crime of passion, to conceal another crime, fear, jealousy, anger, obstruction.

You’d have to be a truly evil person to kill someone “suka – suka”.

To pre-planned a murder and the body's following disposal of the murdered victim in such a manner indicates that the WHY must be a substantially strong WHY indeed.

Would I be in contempt of court in asking for this WHY?

The judgement in full would make interesting reading.