Fugitive Sirul Azhar Umar would be too frightened to reveal to police who had allegedly instructed him to carry out the hit on murdered Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu, said former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

 

"I think if you ask a policeman to ask Sirul, he will be frightened.

 

"He is used to obeying orders from senior people... but now you have the inspector-general of police (Khalid Abu Bakar) coming to ask him, it is very difficult to answer," Mahathir told a press conference in Cyberjaya today.

 

Mahathir was responding to the police's assertion that it had sent officers to meet with Sirul, who is being held at an immigration detention centre in Australia, and they did not get any new information from the convicted murderer.

 

However, Sirul told Malaysiakini in a phone call from Sydney early this morning that no police officer had met him, and he accused Khalid of lying .

 
Mahathir also said he was ready to meet Sirul's mother, Piah Samad ( right in photo ), after she requested for a meeting with the former prime minister.
 
"I am willing to meet anybody, I will meet anybody who comes to see me," he said after a dialogue with students' organised by What Youth Should Know (WYSG).

Yesterday, PAS information chief Mahfuz Omar said he would be arranging a meeting between Piah and Mahathir.

Submarine deal

 

This was after Mahathir for the first time publicly raised the case of the Altantuya murder - an issue which has dogged Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak even when he was deputy prime minister.
 
Mahathir had criticised Najib for dismissing Sirul's claim that he was instructed to carry out the hit on the Mongolian woman.
 
Sirul served as Najib's bodyguard when the premier was then deputy prime minister and defence minister.
 
Altantuya was shot dead and her body blown up with military-grade explosives after purportedly demanding a cut of the commission from the Defence Ministry’s multi-billion ringgit submarine deal with France.
 
A close associate of Najib, Abdul Razak Baginda was charged for abetting murder but was acquitted by the Shah Alam High Court in 2008.
 
However, two police commandos - Sirul and Azilah Hadri - were found guilty for the murder and sentence to death.
 
They exhausted their final appeal at the Federal Court in January this year.
 
Azilah is awaiting sentence but has filed another appeal, while Sirul fled to Sydney where Putrajaya is expected to have a hard time extraditing him as Australia has laws against deporting individuals facing the death penalty.
 
Najib has vehemently denied having any links to Altantuya or ever knowing her.