Veteran opposition lawmaker Lim Kit Siang has mooted a fact-finding mission to probe fugitive police commando Sirul Azhar Umar on the motive of Altantuya Shaariibuu's murder.

And the two best candidates for the job, according to Lim, are former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ( below ).

"(The fact-finding mission should) report to Parliament on their findings, including what should be done to Sirul and Azilah (Hadri), both with death sentences hanging over them, although Sirul has absconded to Australia," said Lim in a press release today.

This morning, Mahathir had wrote a blog post in which he claimed that BN would most likely face debate in the next general election due to mounting allegations of misconduct against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

One major issue bogging Najib down, said Mahathir, was the mystery surrounding the motive of Altantuya's murder. Sirul and Azilah were both part of Najib's security detail when she was murdered in 2006.

At the time, Abdullah was the prime minister while Najib was deputy.

Najib has to explain

Lim said Mahathir had rightly pointed out in the latter's blog that there were elements of injustice in Altantuya's murder when he said: "Apart from (Prime Minister) Najib (Abdul Razak) dismissing the claims as 'rubbish', there was no investigation.

"This is a human life. It would be very cruel for Sirul to die for just following orders."

Lim said the judiciary, attorney-general, and the police are all guilty of dereliction of duty by not pursuing the murder motive and not revealing who gave Sirul orders to execute Altantuya.

"Their dereliction of duty were all the more heinous and inexcusable when they should have known about Sirul's first statement to the police on November 6, 2006, where he admitted that he was carrying out instructions when he killed Altantuya.

"While Najib could claim that he had not personally issued such an order, how could he be sure that no such order was issued by someone else?

"Could Najib explain?" wrote Lim.

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