Former elite Malaysian bodyguard Sirul Azhar Umar loses final appeal for Australian asylum

A former elite bodyguard to the Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak has lost his final bid for Australian asylum.

Sirul Azhar Umar, who is currently in detention in Australia.

A former elite Malaysian bodyguard sentenced to death over the murder of a young woman

linked to the country’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak, and currently in Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre, has lost his final appeal for Australian asylum.

The decision by the Administrative Court of Appeal on Monday to reject Sirul Azhar Umar’s

protection appeal opens the way for his deportation to Malaysia, though he is unlikely to be

returned until the Mahathir government abolishes the death penalty — which it has said it

intends to do.

Sirul, 45, was first acquitted and then convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of

Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaaribuu in absentia after fleeing to Australia in late 2014.

He was picked up by Australian immigration authorities within days of his re-conviction in

January 2015 and has been in Villawood ever since, from where he has lodged a number of

appeals for a protection visa on the grounds he was acting under orders to commit a “political

crime”.

Shortly after his 2015 detention Sirul threatened to reveal who ordered Ms Altantuya’s murder,

hinted at involvement at the highest levels and claimed to be a scapegoat to cover up the

involvement of “important people”.

But a year later he issued a series of bizarre video messages from Villawood recanting all

previous allegations and explicitly exonerating from involvement Mr Najib, the former

Malaysian premier now facing 45 serious corruption-related charges.

In his judgment on Monday, AAT deputy president Brian Rayment rejected Sirul’s claim for

protection, saying there was insufficient evidence “to be satisfied that any miscarriage of justice took place in relation to the applicant’s conviction, or that serious grounds do not exist to consider that he was guilty of the crime of murder”.

The judgment, obtained by the ABC, also revealed that Sirul had told the appeals court he had been ordered to kill Ms Altantuya, a 26-year-old mother of two young boys, because she was a Russian spy.

A Malaysian acquaintance of Sirul’s who lives in Australia told The Australian Sirul

was now “confused, worried about what is in store for him in Kuala Lumpur”.

Mr Najib and his wife Rosmah have steadfastly denied any link to Ms Altantuya’s murder,

contradicting the affidavits of a late private investigator and a former close associate of

Rosmah’s who have both alleged the couple were involved. Mr Najib has also publicly denied

ever having an affair with Ms Altantuya.

Within days of Mr Najib’s electoral defeat last May, Sirul told Malaysian media from Villawood he had killed “for the country, as all is done under orders. That is how the unit works”, he said, referring to the elite police bodyguard unit he worked for when the crime was committed.

He said he was willing to reveal all in return for a full pardon from the new government.

Lawyers acting for the Shaaribuu family in an ongoing wrongful death action in Malaysia say

Sirul could help resolve long-unanswered questions over her murder — a notorious crime long-linked to alleged kickbacks in a $US1.1 billion Scorpene submarine contract scandal negotiated under Mr Najib when he was defence minister.

French submarine maker DCNS is alleged to have paid more than $US134 million in kickbacks to a shell company linked to Abdul Razak Baginda, a close Najib associate who helped brokered the deal and Ms Altantuya’s former lover.