With a sizeable team supporting former police special forces officer Sirul Azhar Umar, who is paying for all his bills?

This is the question raised by The Weekend Australian , the Sunday edition of the newspaper The Australian , in its lengthy news analysis on Sirul and the murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu, for which Sirul has been convicted.

According to The Weekend Australian , Sirul had retained the services of a solicitor, barrister and migration consultant - until at least last month.

The Weekend Australian yesterday reported that Sirul also employs a Sydney-based Malaysian-born clerk, who handles his finances and the expenses of his son who is also in Australia.

He also has lawyers who act for him in Malaysia.

All this while detained at the Villawood immigration detention centre in Sydney, where he is caught in an immigration limbo after jumping bail in Malaysia to flee to Australia.

Australian law prevents the country from deporting those who will face the death penalty at home. Sirul was sentenced to death for the murder of Altantuya, together with his fellow officer, Azilah Hadri.

Expensive support team

“This expensive support team has led to questions about how an out-of-work Malaysian policeman can afford such services.

“Who is footing Sirul’s bill? It’s a question one might reasonably expect Australian authorities to ask, given their concerns over his vulnerability to coercion,” the report said.

The Weekend Australian stated “one member of Sirul’s team” said the Australian expenses are “paid through his Malaysian lawyers”.

Australian authorities have assured the media there that it is raising security on Sirul, for fear that he might be coerced to return home to face the death penalty.

The tightened security, raised after he started giving interviews to Malaysian and Australian media and received a visit from his mother, has ironically won him “a rare double room to himself” at Dormitory Three of Villawood’s Blaxland Unit.

Here, Sirul has his own computer, telephone and access to a kitchen, the newspaper reported.

Sirul has, in the past few weeks, released several videos relating to his case.

This includes a threat to reveal a list of names of people who have tried to bribe him to implicate Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in the 2006 murder of Altantuya.

Najib was implicated because Sirul and his colleague Azilah were then acting as bodyguards to the prime minister at the time.

Najib’s associate Abdul Razak Baginda was also charged with abetment to the murder of the Mongolian translator, but was acquitted without his defence being called.

Najib has said that he did not even know who Altantuya was.