A three-member bench comprising judges Datuk Seri Mohamed Apandi Ali, Datuk Linton Albert and Datuk Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat made the unanimous decision to allow the appeal by former chief inspector Azilah Hadri and former corporal Sirul Azhar Umar.
Azilah and Sirul were jointly charged and convicted by the High Court in Shah Alam in 2009 for murdering Altantuya, 28, at a forest reserve in Shah Alam in October, 2006.
Both were then with the Bukit Aman Special Action Squad and were in Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s security team. Najib was then the deputy prime minister and defence minister.
In their brief five-minute judgment read out by Tengku Maimun, she said the trial judge failed to consider the defence of alibi filed by Azilah.
"There was nowhere in the grounds of judgment of the learned trial judge that he had considered whether the station diary showed the presence of the first appellant (Azilah) at Bukit Aman at the material time. He cannot be or is unlikely to be at the crime scene.
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