Altantuya’s convicted killer Azilah avoids death penalty as Federal Court reviews sentence to 40 years and 12 strokes of cane

PUTRAJAYA (Oct 10): Former police commando Azilah Hadri will no longer have to face the death penalty over Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu’s 2006 murder, as the Federal Court has decided to reduce or replace his sentence with imprisonment of 40 years and 12 strokes of the cane.

Azilah, now 48, has been on the death row in prison for the past nine years, after the Federal Court in 2015 decided to uphold his conviction.

Azilah was aged 30 and the chief inspector with the police’s special action unit (UTK) when he was charged in 2006 with the murder, and was aged 39 when the Federal Court decided that both he and fellow police commando Sirul Azhar Umar are guilty of the crime.

At the time of Azilah’s conviction for murdering Altantuya, the punishment under the Penal Code’s Section 302 was a mandatory death sentence. This means the courts had no discretion to hand down alternative sentences.

After Malaysia changed its laws last year, the courts can now choose to decide whether to sentence a person who committed murder with either the death penalty; or between 30 to 40 years of jail and at least 12 strokes of the cane.

Following the changes to Malaysian law, prisoners in Malaysia who were sentenced to death for murder — including Azilah — had applied to the Federal Court to review their sentences and to consider replacing it with a minimum 30-year imprisonment and caning. — Malay Mail

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