In a statement, it said Azilah Hadri had not left jail the entire year.

“In fact, he was not taken out of prison since April 15, 2015.”

Najib’s lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah claimed yesterday that “several individuals” had visited Azilah in an attempt to persuade him to implicate the former prime minister in the model’s death in 2006.

He said he had “very reliable information” that Azilah had met a “VVIP”, among others, outside the prison after February.

But the Prison Department said the last time Azilah was brought out of prison was on April 15, 2015, for a court case at the Sepang Magistrate’s Court.

Based on its records, it said, Azilah was visited by his family 34 times and his lawyers 15 times as of last year.

“Therefore, any claim that Azilah was brought out of the Kajang prison this year to meet VVIPs is false.”

The former Special Action Unit commando recently filed a statutory declaration for the review of his murder conviction.

He alleged that the order to kill Altantuya came from Najib, who was the deputy prime minister at the time.

However, Najib rubbished Azilah’s claim, calling it a “complete fabrication by a desperate person seeking to escape the gallows”.

Altantuya was murdered in October 2006 in the jungles in Puncak Alam near Shah Alam, Selangor. She was shot in the head before her body was blown up with explosives.