PUNISH THE KILLER OF ALTANTUYA
The Malaysian police catch up with Bala in Bangkok and ask to meet him. However, they are only interested in talking about the first SD and there is no discussion whatsoever about the second SD. The Malaysian police, therefore, know the truth but chose to bury it rather than take action.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Q 41. Where did you go once you landed in Bangkok?
A. Deepak was supposed to arrange for someone to meet us at the airport but there was no one there. As I was feeling very tired, I hired a taxi to take my family and I to the Shangri La Hotel. We checked in to this hotel and we went to sleep.
Q 42. Did anyone contact you while you were at the Shangri La Hotel?
A. No, because no one knew where we were and I did not have a Thai SIM card so I could not use my hand phone to call anyone.
Q 43. What did you do the next day? (July 5th).
A. I took my wife and children shopping to buy some clothes as we did not have much with us. I also managed to buy a Thai SIM card and communicated with ASP Suresh to inform him where I was.
Deepak had told me that all communication should be through ASP Suresh and that his brother, Rajesh, would be handling everything for me from now on.
Q 44. What did you do the day after that? (July 6th).
A. The Shangri La management informed me the hotel was full that night due to a pre-booked wedding function so we had to leave. I then left and checked in to the Hilton Hotel nearby with my wife and children.
Rajesh had arranged for one of his contacts in Bangkok to assist me and my family in obtaining Indian visas. This contact was a Thai woman who came to the hotel to collect all our passports and the visa fees from me.
Q 45. What happened on July 7th?
A. I received a call in my room from a Special Branch officer. He was calling from the lobby and asked to see me. I then went down to meet him. I recognised him as he used to be a colleague of mine when I was with the Special Branch. He was the liaison officer from the Malaysian Embassy in Bangkok.
Q 46. What did you both discuss?
A. He asked me whether I would give permission for the Malaysian Police to record a statement from me and if I was agreeable, he would inform KL about this. I asked him to wait while I called ASP Suresh to inform him about this development.
Q 47. Did you call ASP Suresh?
A. Yes. ASP Suresh told me exactly what to tell the police interviewers. He wanted me to avoid any mention of the involvement of Deepak, Dinesh and himself.
Q 48. So what did he tell you to say?
A. In short, he basically told me to tell the police that after I had made public my 1st Statutory declaration, I felt remorse and wanted to retract it so I decided to call a lawyer called Arunampalam, who I was supposed to have met through my PI work, and arranged to meet him at the Lotus restaurant next to the Nikko Hotel on Jalan Binjai.
When I met up with him at this restaurant he advised me to retract the 1st statutory declaration and that he would draft a second one for me to that effect. I was supposed to say that I went to his office with him where he prepared the 2nd statutory declaration which I signed and that I went to the Prince Hotel the next day with him to release this statutory declaration to the press.
This is what I was told to say to the police when they recorded my statement, according to ASP Suresh.
Q 49. What did you do next?
A. After discussing this with ASP Suresh, I informed the Special Branch officer from the Malaysian Embassy that I was agreeable to my statement being recorded, so this officer informed KL and told me he would come and pick me up from my hotel the next morning and take me to the Malaysian Embassy. In fact we went out for a meal together that evening.
Q 50. Were you picked up the next morning?
A. Yes, this SB officer came to the hotel the next morning and drove me to the Malaysian Embassy where we arrived at about 9.00 am. At about 9.30 am, 3 police officers arrived. They had apparently flown to Bangkok from KL the evening before once they had received confirmation that I was prepared to allow them to record a statement from me.
Q 51. Did you recognise any of these police officers?
A. Yes, there was ACP Muniandy from the Commercial Crimes division of Bukit Aman, another Indian officer and a Malay officer, whose names escape me at the moment.
Q 52. How did they greet you?
A. They were all very pleasant to me. ACP Muniandy asked me which of the two statutory declarations was true and I said the 1st one. He then shook my hand and told me I was a very brave man.
Q 53. Did they record your statement?
A. Yes. They questioned me for about 6 hours. They did not seem to be interested in my 2nd statutory declaration and concentrated their questions in relation to my 1st statutory declaration.
They wanted to know who was involved in it and how I was led into making it.
I explained everything to them from the time I met my lawyer Americk Sidhu in a pub one night with ASP Suresh, M. Puravalen and Sivarasah Rasiah in April or May 2008 up to the time of my first press release.
ACP Muniandy was the officer asking all the questions while his colleague recorded my statement.
Q 54. Did they comment on anything you told them?
A. No. I just repeated what ASP Suresh had told me to tell them about the circumstances which prompted me into affirming the 2nd statutory declaration and they recorded all of it.
TO BE CONTINUED
The Altantuya Shaaribuu’s case: how and why she was killed
Published in the Liberation French newspaper on 5th March 2009
This is the English translation of the Liberation French article:
Shaaribuu Setev is a bitter and disappointed man. Yet, behind the saddened face of this Mongolian lies a fierce determination. Seated in a sofa in the lobby of an Ulaan Baataar hotel rattled by gushes of a freezing wind, this sixty years old man is ready to fight. His face features, hardened by the suffering and the stern climate, and his intense gaze tell all. “My daughter has been murdered by Malaysians on Malaysian territory. And they did not have even offer a word of apology,” states this professor of psychology at the National University of Mongolia.
The assassination of his daughter, Altantuya Shaaribuu, took place in October 2006. This was a murder unlike others in a region where business conflicts or petty politics are often settled with a gun. Everything in this case, which started in 2002 when the French Spanish company Armaris concluded the sale of three submarines to the Malaysian government for the amount of one billion Euros, is out of the ordinary.
The impact of the “Altantuya case” in France, Malaysia and Mongolia has yet to reach its climax. The murder of the 28 year old Mongolian was the result of a “commission” at the price of 114 million Euros by Armaris to its Malaysian counterpart. This “commission,” which was acknowledged by the Malaysian government in front of the Parliament in Kuala Lumpur, has triggered a chain of events that has led to the assassination of Altantuya and the disappearance of several key witnesses in the case.
A report from the Malaysian police, written on 19th november 2006 and which has been kept secret until now (can be read below), reveals dry and precise descriptions as to how this young woman, a member of Asian high society, has been killed. In this document, one of the killers, a policeman of the Malaysian Special Branch named Sirul Omar, replied to the questions of an officer at a police station close to the murder scene. “When the Chinese woman saw that I was taking a gun, she begged me to spare her, saying she was pregnant. Azilah (the commanding officer of Sirul) grabbed her and [threw] her on the ground. I immediately shot the left side of her face. Then Azilah took off her clothes and put them in a black plastic bag. Azilah noticed that her hand was still moving. He ordered me to shoot again, which I did”, said Sirul. This is the first confirmation of Altantuya’s assassins’ identity. “Then we carried her body into the woods. Azilah wrapped the explosives around her legs, her abdomen and her head, and we exploded her.”
The revelation of this report in the French newspaper Liberation is the latest chapter in this colourful and dramatic saga featuring French weapon sellers, Mongolian Shaman, and Malaysian politicians. This case is explosive not only for the Malaysian government, since the deputy Prime minister Najib Razak (who is scheduled to become Prime minister at the end of March) is suspected of having links to the case, but also because it could embarrass the DCNS, this French company specialising in military shipbuilding. The French Spanish company Armaris, which sold two Scorpène and one Agosta submarines to Malaysia in June 2002, was bought by DCNS in 2007.
With her magnetic beauty and sophistication, Altantuya is reminiscent of the troubling image of a Far East Mata Hari. She grew up in Saint Petersburg (Russia), then studied at the Institute of Economic Management in Beijing. Besides speaking English, she is fluent in Russian, Chinese and Korean. The fateful cycle for Altantuya came into gear when she met Abdul Razak Baginda in Hong Kong in 2004. Baginda is a security expert and the director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre, a pro-government think-tank. The two quickly became romantically involved. Altantuya, nicknamed Tuya by her friends, proved to be a useful assistant, helping Baginda translate from Russian to English.
Whereas Altantuya is young and beautiful, the rich and alluring Baginda is a well known figure of the Kuala Lumpur’s elite, notably because of his proximity to the Malaysian Deputy Prime minister and minister of Defense Najib Razak (he is also his security affairs adviser). Baginda parades in the most exclusive circles of Kuala Lumpur, sometimes accompanied by his legitimate wife.
In March 2005, Altantuya and Baginda departed for Europe, touring France, Germany, Italy and Portugal in the red Ferrari of Baginda, staying in posh hotels and dining in the finest restaurants of the old Continent. This trip, however, was not only for tourism: the contract for the sale of the submarines had been signed in 2002, but important details had yet to be settled. “We knew that Baginda was used by Deputy Prime minister Najib Razak as an intermediary for weapons systems deals, especially the high level ones,” says a regional security affairs expert.
At the end of March 2005 the couple was in Paris, where they met with Najib Razak. A picture shows the threesome in a Parisian private club. “Tuya showed me the pix. She said that one of the men was her boyfriend, Abdul Razak Baginda, and the other the “big boss”, Najib Razak. I asked her if they were brothers because of the names, but she said no, and that Najib Razak was the ‘prime minister’”, said Amy, Altantuya’s best friend (Najib Razak has sworn on the Koran that he has never met Altantuya). According to a private detective, now in hiding in India, the beautiful Tuya was also the occasional mistress of the deputy Prime minister, who was introduced to her by Baginda at the end of 2004.
The story became dramatic when, in October 2006, Altantuya was informed that the commission paid by the French-Spanish company Armaris had arrived on a Kuala Lumpur bank account. It had been paid to Perimekar, a company owned by Baginda. Altantuya rushed to Kuala Lumpur, in order to claim her share of the commission from Baginda ; she said she was entitled to 500,000 dollars. Baginda and Altantuya broke up prior to this. A jealous Rosmah Mansor, the feared businesswoman and wife of Najib Razak, objected any payment to Altantuya. Altantuya arrived in Kuala Lumpur with two other Mongolian women, one of them was a Shaman responsible for putting a spell on Baginda if he refused to pay. For several days, Altantuya harassed her ex-lover.
On the 18th of October, Baginda could no longer tolerate the daily scenes made by Altantuya in front of his house. He contacted the Director of the Special Branch, Musa Safrie, who happened to also be Najib Razak’s aide de camp. On October 19th, 2006, a little before 9 pm, two police officers of the Special Branch, Azilah Hadridan and Sirul Omar, were sent in front of Baginda’s house where Altantuya was gesticulating and shouting. They had the order of “neutralising the Chinese woman.” They kidnapped her, and drove her ten kilometers away and shot her several times. Then, they destroyed her body with C4 explosives, a type which can only be obtained from within the Defense Ministry. Her entry into Malaysia was erased from the immigration records. It would appear that Altantuya had never come to Malaysia, because there is no trace left of her.
There is no perfect crime. The taxi driver hired by Altantuya for the day did not appreciate that his passenger was kidnapped under his eyes without payment for the fare. He took note of the registration plate of the kidnapper’s car and filed a complaint at the local police station. In a few days, the police identified the car and realised that it was a government vehicle.
Events unfolded that even the Deputy Prime minister Najib Razak could not impede. He tried to cover the case. A few hours before the arrest of Baginda, he sent him a SMS: “I will see the Inspector General of Police at 11 am today… The problem will be solved. Be cool”. A few hours after, Baginda was arrested as well as the two police officers of the Special Branch, Azilah and Sirul.
After a trial considered dubious by many observers, Baginda was acquitted with the accusation of having ordered the murder and released in November 2008. Accused of having perpetrated the murder, Azilah and Sirul appeared in front of the Court last month. If convicted, their sentence is death. The verdict is scheduled for the 9th of April.
Thousands of miles from there, in the Mongolian capital city Ulaan Baataar, Shaaribuu Setev, Altantuya’s father, is trying to control his anger. To him and his family, the acquittal and release of Baginda is symbolic of the unfairness of the Malaysian judicial process: “The Malaysian government is not even answering to the letters from the Mongolian Foreign Affairs Ministry,” he says.
When Shaaribuu came to the Malaysian Parliament to meet Najib Razak, the Deputy Prime minister had to escape through a back door in order to avoid an embarrassing encounter. The Altantuya case has become a key element of the Malaysian political game between Najib Razak (who is expected to become Prime Minister after the United Malay Nation Organisation (UMNO) Congress in March) and the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. So far, Najib Razak has navigated around the obstacles, but the murder of the young Mongolian remains a sword suspended over his head.
One of the most obscure aspects of the Altantuya case is the role of the Armaris company. In October 2007, the Malaysian Deputy Defense minister, Zainal Abdidin Zin, acknowledged in front of the Parliament that Armaris had effectively paid 114 million Euros in commission to Perimekar. He maintained that it was not a bribe, but a payment for “support and coordination services.”
Was there corruption as in the case of the Taiwanese frigates in which the French DCNS was also implicated? DCNS, a private company with public financing, has declined our request for a meeting. “Nobody can comment on this case,” was the sober reply of the DCNS Press relations officer in Paris. A document, which could establish a link between Altantuya and the French company is the guarantee letter written by Abdul Razak Baginda so that his mistress could obtain a visa to enter the Schengen zone (of whom France is a member country). The French embassy could not refuse this service to a man decorated with the Legion d’Honneur. But the role of Altantuya in the submarines negotiations is still not clear. Intelligence agencies find her background intriguing and the Russian FSB (ex-KGB) is following closely the case.
In Ulaan Baataar, Mungunshagai, the eldest son of Altantuya, who is 12 years old, is traumatised by the death of his mother. Altanshagai, the youngest, who is five years old and mentally handicapped, has not understood that he will never see again his mother. “He is asking for her all the time and is staying the whole day prostrated on his chair. Every evening, I bring him sweets and I tell him that his mother gave it to me for him”, says Shaaribuu Setev, the grandfather of the two boys. As for Baginda, he settled down in the United Kingdom with his family. He never uttered a word of regret on the deadly fate of the one who shared his life for two years.
Arnaud Dubus (in Kuala Lumpur, Ulaan Baataar and Paris)
Arnaud did extensive research into this story and travelled the world in search of the truth. I met him in Kuala Lumpur soon after my release from ISA detention after he returned from Mongolia.
This is the original cautioned statement that Sirul Azhar Omar made in the interrogation by the police on 19 November 2006 that confirms not only how and why Altantuya was killed but also that they were hired to kill her:
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