KUALA LUMPUR – Australia’s Parliament has passed preventive detention laws that will see those released from immigration detention locked up again if they pose any risk of committing serious offences.
Reuters reported the passing of the new legislation late last night in developments that could affect Malaysian Sirul Azhar Umar, the former police commando convicted of murdering Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006.
The law, moved by Australia’s ruling party, Labour, allows a court to order the detention of those previously released if they are determined to be liable for committing serious violent or sexual crimes.
This development will affect Sirul’s freedom in Australia after his release last month from an immigration detention centre there, where he had been held since fleeing Malaysia in 2015, ahead of a Federal Court ruling to uphold his murder conviction and death sentence.
Sirul was released last month following a decision by Australia’s high court that the indefinite detention of persons who cannot be deported to their home countries is illegal.
Australia’s laws did not allow Sirul’s deportation to Malaysia because he faced the death penalty here.
Under Malaysia’s new law on the revision of death and life sentences, which came into force on September 12, Sirul has 90 days, or until December 11, to file for a review of his death sentence.
His murder accomplice, fellow cop Azilah Hadi, is in Sg Buloh prison and is reported to have filed for a review of his death sentence.
Sirul and Azilah were found guilty by the Malaysian high court in 2009 for shooting and blowing up Altantuya, who was described as an interpreter, with military-grade explosives.
In 2013, the duo succeeded in overturning their conviction at the appellate court, but the Federal Court in 2015 restored their conviction and sentenced them to death. Prior to the apex court’s ruling, Sirul had fled to Australia, where he stayed under the custody of Australian authorities at Sydney’s Villawood immigration detention centre until his release.
Last month, in a bombshell interview with Al Jazeera’s 101 East, Sirul, who is unlikely to be granted an Australian visa due to his murder conviction, denied responsibility for Altantuya’s murder, claiming he was merely a scapegoat.
He also expressed hopes of being accepted by the Australian community and building a life with his family there. – December 7, 2023