KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Razak's lawyer today claimed there was a co-ordinated effort to "kill off" his client with "absurd" allegations concerning events leading up to Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu's murder in 2016.
"It is laughable that my client would tell Azilah (former Special Action Unit (UTK) officer Azilah Hadri) to abduct the woman and kill her...and to demonstrate how this should be done by running a finger across his throat.
"It is something unbelievable," Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said.
Shafee said this to reporters after appearing at the Federal Court seeking to intervene in an application by Azilah to review his conviction for Altantuya's murder.
The Federal Court has set April 20 to hear the review application.
Shafee said Najib had instructed him to file the application to become an interested party in the matter as the former prime minister had been implicated in the statutory declaration (SD) filed by Azilah.
"All kinds of allegation have been made in the SD and as you all know my client has totally denied everything.
"All this is being done at the 11th hour when Azilah was expecting to be executed.
"It is a last minute desperate application...my client is being targeted to get him behind bars without bail. I think that is the whole purpose."
Shafee said it was mind boggling that Azilah was coming up with the latest allegations 10 years after the case had gone through all three courts (High Court, Court of Appeal and Federal Court).
"Well they can try their luck. I can't blame him (Azilah)...it is a desperate attempt to save his life.
"What we want to know is who put him up to this," he said.
Shafee said he wouldn't be surprised if another former policeman convicted for Altantuya's murder, Sirul Azahar, also comes up with a similar tale soon.
The senior lawyer, who is also representing Najib in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) trials, claimed he knew for a fact that Sirul had been visited by three individuals persuading him to come up with something of this sort.
Asked who were these people, Shafee said he couldn't disclose their identities but it includes a reporter and two other persons.
"I cannot tell you as it is extremely sensitive. What I can say is that they are agents from the government of Malaysia who have gone to Sydney to meet Sirul recently.
"I don't know if the same people also visited Azilah but I was told he was also visited upon by someone in February this year."
Shafee said he had been informed that Azilah had been taken out of the Kajang prison to meet a very, very important person (VVIP) in February.
"I cannot confirm this but that is what I have been told. So we can see there is some kind of coordinated plan being devised here," he said.
Azilah, who came up with the explosive SD implicating Najib in the murder, is praying that the top court will order a retrial following his latest revelation on why and how the model was killed.
His lawyer, J Kuldeep Kumar said he had filed the application under Rule 137 of the Federal Court Rules supported by an affidavit and an SD.
Rule 137 allows an applicant to review the decision of the Apex court to prevent any miscarriage of justice.
"We want to set aside the Federal Court ruling (convicting Azilah) and we are seeking a retrial," Kuldeep said.
Meanwhile, lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo – who is holding a watching brief for Altantuya's family, said the police should reopen the case in light of the new leads revealed in Azilah's SD.
Azilah and Sirul were sentenced to death in January 2015, nine years after Altantuya's was shot and her body blown up with explosives.