Sirul Azhar Umar: $17 million blackmail from detainee in Sydney's Villawood detention centre
Sirul Azhar Umar: Villawood's Malaysian murderer
As reported in May 2015, Sirul Azhar Umar has been at the heart of one Malaysia's greatest political murder mysteries.
A convicted murderer in Sydney's Villawood detention centre
appears to have made videos defending Malaysian Prime Minister Najib
Razak around the time he was attempting to blackmail Mr
Najib's government.
Australian Border Force has told Fairfax Media
that Sirul Azhar Umar made the videos before he was arrested and taken
to Villawood in January last year.
Piah Samat, mother, and Noriatin Umar,
sister of convicted killer Sirul Azhar Umar, with Malaysian opposition
politicians outside Villawood detention centre. Photo: James Brickwood
Just days before his arrest, Sirul attempted to blackmail the
Malaysian government for $17 million to keep quiet over the brutal
murder of a glamorous Mongolian socialite in Kuala Lumpur in 2006.
"Greetings boss, I am in difficulty here, I need $2 million to
guarantee my child. After that I want $15 million and I will not return
to Malaysia, I will not bring down the PM," Sirul texted to a shadowy
Malaysian middleman with links to high-level Malaysian officials.
The middleman, who has visited Sirul three times in Villawood, sent a reply back saying "they want to discuss".
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak
with US President Barack Obama at the ASEAN leaders' summit in
California earlier this month. Photo: AP
Australian Federal Police have refused to comment on whether they
are investigating the messages that were retrieved from Sirul's
telephone during an investigation by al-Jazeera's 101 East program.
An AFP spokesperson said the Malaysian government would have to formally agree before any investigation could proceed.
But
Mr Najib's office has repeatedly dismissed attempts to link him to the
murder of 28-year-old Altantuya Shaariibuu as "entirely false smears
motivated by political gain".
Mongolian fashion model and translator
Altantuya Shaariibuu, 28, who was murdered in Malaysia in 2006 amid
allegations of
bribery, backmail, treachery and cover-up. Photo: Asia Sentinel
Three videos in which Sirul recants previous testimony and defends Mr Najib have been published recently by the Malaysiakini news website in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia's
media assumed the videos were made in Villawood, where Sirul, a former
bodyguard for Mr Najib, has applied for a protection visa to be allowed
to live freely in Australia despite having been sentenced to hang in
Malaysia for one of the most sensational crimes in the country's recent
history.
But a spokesman for the Australian Border Force said "an
analysis of the video messages indicates they were filmed before the
detainee entered immigration detention".
Sirul Azhar Umar. Photo: Supplied
In the videos Sirul appears to refer to legal processes underway in Australia and a press conference held by his lawyers.
There
were no legal processes underway before he was detained, which
observers in Malaysia say indicates the videos were made after his
arrest.
But Border Force officials who have investigated the
videos insist the events Sirul was referring to must have taken place
prior to his arrival in Villawood.
Sirul sent the text messages referring to $17 million on December 17, 2014, just four days before he was arrested in Queensland on the basis of an Interpol red notice alerting police around the world.
A
Facebook posting by a user claiming to be Sirul's 19-year-old son Shuk
Sz in January 2015 said: "In all honesty, I am the son of Corporal Sirul
Azhar Umar. To those who don't know about this case, just don't say
what you like. Watch your mouth. If I talk to the press, Malaysia will
fall. The PM will also fall."
Sirul fled to Australia before a
Malaysian court sentenced him to hang for shooting Ms Shaariibuu twice
in the head as she begged for the life of her unborn baby, and then
blowing her up with military-grade C-4 explosives, apparently to remove
any evidence that could point to the father.
Allegations have
simmered for years that Ms Shaariibuu was murdered to keep her quiet
about purported kickbacks to high-level Malaysian officials over
Malaysia's multibillion-dollar purchase of French/Spanish-made
submarines when Mr Najib was defence minister.
Mr Najib insists he never met Ms Shaariibuu and never benefited from any kickbacks from the deal, which are the subject of investigations in France.
Before the videos were published, Sirul threatened to expose who ordered him to commit the murder.
"I
was acting under orders," he told Fairfax Media in Villawood last
year. "Those people who wanted to kill Ms Shaariibuu are still free.
"I want the chance to redeem my family's dignity … I am the scapegoat."
In
the videos Sirul, wearing a white religious skullcap, portrays himself
as a victim in the case despite admitting that he killed Ms Shaariibuu
with another police commando who is seeking royal clemency after he was
also sentenced to hang.
Sirul claimed Ms Shaariibuu was not pregnant when he killed her, contradicting an earlier statement he made.
"I
understand that it is the intention of certain quarters with vested
interests to topple a certain someone," Sirul said in one of the videos.
"I
state here … in God's name … the most honourable Prime Minister Najib
Abdul Razak was never involved and had no links to the case."
Malaysian opposition MPs are demanding a police investigation
into the videos, which were published as Mr Najib struggles to shrug off
a financial scandal involving almost $1 billion that turned up in his private bank account in 2013. He denies any wrongdoing in that case as well.
Mr Najib, a close ally of successive governments in Australia, has cracked down on dissent and removed people he saw as disloyal to his long-ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), ignoring calls to resign.
Australia has
said it will not agree to any request from Malaysia to
extradite Sirul unless authorities in Kuala Lumpur guarantee he will not
be executed.
In Villawood, Sirul lives comfortably in an area
with access to a kitchen, a telephone and the internet and is allowed
visitors who receive approval from the Border Force.
His Malaysian
lawyers have links to the UMNO. During the past year Sirul has been
visited by figures linked to both UMNO and Malaysia's opposition.
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