File photo of ex-policemen Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar (heads covered). Sirul claims he was abandoned by his superiors after obeying orders to kill Altantuya Shaariibuu. — Reuters pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 — Former police commando Sirul Azhar Umar has claimed he was abandoned by his superiors after obeying orders to kill Altantuya Shaariibuu, as he considers revealing the details of the Mongolian’s mysterious murder.

In a telephone interview with online portal Malaysiakini, the convicted killer said he was merely performing his duty to safeguard the country’s interests, a decision that landed him with a death sentence for murder.

“If I die today, I would not find peace as I did what I was told and this is what I get in return,” he said in the report.

On January 13, the Federal Court reversed the acquittal of Sirul, 43, and former Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 39, of the murder of the Mongolian model and restored the mandatory death sentence handed by the High Court in 2009.

Sirul was sentenced in absentia, however, as he was believed to have already left the country at the time.

The decision came just over a year after the Court of Appeal ruled on August 23, 2013 that the High Court trial judge had misdirected proceedings and rendered their initial conviction and sentence unsafe.

Sirul, now detained by Australian immigration authorities, claimed that the apex court should have called his then-superior, deputy superintendent Musa Safri, to the stand to help his case.

“The court also ignored the questionable DNA evidence on the bloodstain found on a shoe placed in my car as well as my own DNA sample.

“The court ignored this despite the strong submissions made by my lawyers,” Sirul said.

In its written judgment, the Federal Court ruled out the need to hear the testimony of Musa, a former aide of then deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, saying it would not have any consequence to the case.

Sirul had previously claimed that he was made a “scapegoat” in Altantuya’s murder, and that he was distressed by political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda’s claim in an interview last month that “rogue policemen” were responsible for the model’s death in 2006.

Malaysian police have put in a formal request for Sirul’s deportation to Malaysia but Australia’s extradition legislation prohibits an individual from being sent back to another country for an offence punishable by death, unless that country pledges not to carry out a death sentence.