‘Where is the human right for the victim’s family?’ A father’s anguish as killer walks free
The father of murdered Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu says he is devastated at news his daughter’s Malaysian hitman killer is now a free man in Australia after a High Court ruling.
It took a full week for Shaariibuu Setev to be told that the Malaysian hit man who murdered his daughter Altantuya had been released from Villawood Detention Centre on the orders of the Australian High Court and was now a free man.
When the devastating news finally came it was not delivered by Australian authorities in Mongolia, from where the 72-year-old professor of film studies has never stopped fighting for justice for his daughter, nor from Malaysian or Mongolian authorities, but rather from this newspaper – a deeply unwelcome revelation for both parties.
“I never imagined Australia would release him,” the shattered father told The Weekend Australian on Friday as he struggled to digest the fact her killer, Sirul Azhar Umar, was now reunited with his 24-year-old son in Canberra while Altantuya’s own son of the same age had been robbed of his mother.
Sirul was one of 84 people released from Australian immigration detention – convicted murderers and rapists among them – after the High Court ruled indefinite detention to be unlawful, sparking safety concerns and a public backlash.
The ruling has left Professor Shaariibuu struggling for words.
“Where is the human right for the victim’s family? We are right here, we are still alive and suffering. The victim’s pain should count for something,” he said.
“There is a Mongolian embassy in Australia, an Australian embassy in Mongolia. Noone has contacted me. When will the Australian government send an apology to me?”
“I really wonder why Australia releases a murderer. It makes me think all the murderers of the world can go to Australia, spend time in immigration detention and eventually be released and become free men.”
He drew no comfort from emergency legislation passed by federal parliament on Thursday mandating curfews and electronic bracelets for those released.
All those released from detention have been barred from contact with children and victims of their crimes, and face up to five years jail if they breach their visa conditions.
Professor Shaariibuu dismissed those measures as “just for show”.
“I feel so disappointed in Australia. Is this the democracy you’re teaching to Mongolia, a young democracy?”
Sirul Azhar Umar, a former elite police bodyguard for top Malaysian government figures, has always maintained he abducted Ms Shaariibuu from outside the Kuala Lumpur home of her ex-lover in October 2006 on the orders of powerful people.
It has long-been speculated those people feared the model and translator could reveal details of bribes allegedly paid by a French defence firm to her ex-lover Razak Baginda – a key government negotiator in the $US2 billion submarine deal and a close confidante of the then defence minister Najib Razak, who would go on to become Prime Minister.
Along with a second commando, Azilah Hadri, the terrified Mongolian mother-of-two was driven to a forest on the edge of Kuala Lumpur and shot twice in the head as she begged for her life. Her body was blown up with military-grade explosives.
The two men had been expecting a cash reward for their efforts. Instead, they were convicted of murder and sentenced to death, though Sirul fled to Australia where he was detained in early 2015 by immigration officials and locked up in Villawood.
The Najib government refused Australian entreaties to commute Sirul’s sentence to life imprisonment so that he could be returned to Malaysia. The then ruling UMNO party even paid for lawyers to represent him, fuelling rumours that powerful figures were seeking to keep him quiet.
In 2019, a year after the Najib government was ousted from office, Azilah Hadri alleged from death row that the order to kill Ms Shaariibuu came from Najib Razak and Baginda – an accusation both men have strenuously denied.
Najib has since been jailed for corruption for his role in the $US4.5 billion 1MDB misappropriation scandal but the Malaysian government still insists it is powerless to bring Sirul to justice.
Home affairs minister Saifuddin Nasution said this week Sirul could only be extradited if he himself applied for a review of his sentence – as many other death row prisoners have done since the government abolished mandatory death penalties _ and if his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Some Malaysian lawyers have suggested Australia could appeal on Sirul’s behalf for that review, a move Professor Shaariibuu has urged Canberra to explore.
He has also called on the government to appeal directly to Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim to take back his daughter’s killer so that he can finally face justice.
“He must tell everything he knows to a court. And then he should spend the rest of his life in jail” not as a free man living a good life in a prosperous country like Australia.
Instead, he said, that privilege should be offered to his own grandson, who has lost his mother, his younger brother (who died in 2017 of congenital physical disabilities) and his grandmother.
The family sold everything, and borrowed more besides, to fund their fight for justice for Altantuya.
Last December they won a civil case against her two murderers, Baginda and the Malaysian government, and were awarded five million ringgit ($A1.65 million) in damages. Baginda and the government have since appealed the ruling.
“My grandson has suffered so much,” he said. “I don’t want him to carry the burden of this fight, and all the pain. I want to make sure he lives a peaceful life.”
Additional reporting: Khaliun Bayartsogt
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