A lawyer representing the father of slain Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu has requested the court to instruct the Foreign Ministry to give a final date for it to reply on whether the amended statement of claim on Shaariibuu Setev’s RM100 million suit has been served to second accused Sirul Azhar Umar.

Ramkarpal Singh told Malaysiakini of his request when contacted, since the Foreign Ministry and the Malaysian High Commission have not indicated whether the documents had been delivered to Sirul, who is being detained at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre near Sydney in Australia.

Ramkarpal's law firm sent the documents to the Foreign Ministry for it to send them to the Malaysian High Commission in Australia in early August last year.

However, since then there has been no word on whether the documents have been delivered.

"The Shah Alam Court has agreed to give the final date a month from now, on March 24," Ramkarpal said.

Today was initially fixed for case management on the matter before senior assistant registrar Azlinda Ahmad Shariff, who made the necessary directives.

It was reported two months ago that the High Court in Shah Alam would do its part to find out what happened.

The documents had to be served on Sirul as his lawyers in the criminal trial had discharged themselves from representing him in the civil suit as there were no instructions.

This resulted in Justice Suraya Othman instructing the amended statement of claim to be filed and given to the Foreign Ministry to be dispatched to the Malaysian High Commission in Australia.

Shaariibuu Setev ( photo ) filed the amended statement of claim following Sirul and Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri's conviction by the Federal Court on Jan 13 last year for the murder of Altantuya.

He also named political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda and the government in the RM100 million suit.

The two elite police special forces men were found guilty of murdering Altantuya at a jungle clearing on top of a hill at Puncak Alam in Shah Alam between 10pm and 1am on July 18-19, 2006.

Despite the conviction, Sirul slipped out of the country after both of he and Azilah were acquitted by the Court of Appeal, resulting in a red notice being issued by Interpol, leading to his arrest in Brisbane.

Meanwhile, Star Online reports that Ramkarpal had written to attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali on Malaysia's application to extradite Sirul.

"I have written to Apandi to find out if it has initiated extradition proceedings for Sirul as claimed by the Home Minister in Parliament," said the lawyer.

Ramkarpal had also written separately to the Australian attorney-general seeking the status of Malaysia's application.

Australia has a ruling where it would not extradite anyone on a death row after it ended the death penalty in 1967.