ANWAR TO NAJIB: “Nothing personal!”

C4 Murder: Malaysian Police will be calling up Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin to investigate allegations in his recent statutory declaration on purported facts related to the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu. Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said the three individuals named in the document filed on June 18 would also be called up.
In an explosive statutory declaration to a Malaysian court, one of Malaysia’s most prominent web journalists has alleged that the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak as well as a Malaysian Army officer and the officer’s wife were directly involved in the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu on October 19, 2006, and that people at the very top of the Malaysian government are aware of the fact. Raja Petra Kamaruddin states:
“Altantuya’s body is alleged to have been blown up with C4 explosives at a secondary forest in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam. The murder trial is currently ongoing at the Shah Alam High Court.

All three have been linked in a sensational sequence of revelations that has convinced many Malaysians that the woman was killed to silence her claim for a share in the rewards of the transaction.

The scandal exploded last week after French newspaper Liberation alleged the submarines deal and the murder of Altantuya Shariibuu, 28, were connected.

A glamorous, cosmopolitan woman, Altantuya grew up in St Petersburg, spoke Russian, Chinese, Korean and English, moved in elite circles and has been dubbed "a Far Eastern Mata Hari". She became the mistress of a Malaysian political fixer and was allegedly trying to extort money from him at the time of her violent death.

Two members of an elite Malaysian police unit that protects top politicians are on trial in Kuala Lumpur, accused of shooting her in the jungle and then blowing up her body with military explosives. Special Branch officers Azilah Hadri, 32, and Sirul Azhar Umar, 36, could go to the gallows if convicted of abducting and murdering Altantuya on October 19, 2006. A verdict is expected early next month.

Their trial is unfolding as Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak stands on the verge of taking over as premier after a ruling party leadership election, due within days.

Mr Najib was accused in parliament by a young opposition MP, Gobind Singh Deo, of involvement in the murder. Mr Deo was suspended by the speaker for making the remark. Mr Najib has strongly denied any involvement.

The picture

On Day 10 of the trial, Altantuya’s cousin Burmaa Oyunchimeg testified that after Altantuya returned from France, she went to Hong Kong to meet Burmaa, and showed her a photograph of Altantuya and her lover, Abdul Razak Baginda, who is accused of conspiring in her murder, and “a government official” taking a meal together. Answering Singh later, after the shouting match in the court had subsided, she said this “government official” was Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

She could distinctly remember the name, she said, because it bears a similarity to Altantuya’s acknowledged lover’s name, and she even asked Altantuya whether they were brothers. Burmaa further added that the photo had also been shown to Altantuya’s father.

Now, the revelation of Najib in the photo would not have caused such a sensation if not for the deputy prime minister’s oft-repeated denial of any knowledge of Altantuya, including a public denial during a recent by-election, when even the name of Allah was invoked.

What does Najib have to say now that his denial is directly contradicted by the witness Burmaa? His press secretary Tengku Sarifuddin Tengku Ahmad issued a brief statement on June 30 saying that the deputy prime minister had declined to comment for two reasons. One, any comment might be sub judice, since the case is in court, and, two, Najib had already repeatedly denied an acquaintance with the girl in the past, “as such, the issue over the picture does not arise,” the spokesman said.

Sub judice? That’s ridiculous. How could a simple statement like “I have never had my photo taken with Altantuya” be sub judice? In fact, being the number-two leader in the government, Najib is absolutely duty-bound to say outright whether he was ever photographed with Altantuya, in view of the serious implications of Burmaa’s allegation.

The issue over the picture does not arise? Equally ridiculous. In fact, the opposite is true. Precisely because of Najib’s past denials, it is all the more imperative that Najib must stand up now to clarify.

Guilty conscience?

There is only one explanation for Najib’s past denials and his present silence: A guilty conscience. If Najib’s conduct with respect to the case had been above-board, there would be no reason for him to deny an acquaintance with his friend Abdul Razak’s friend Altantuya. Similarly, if the allegation of the picture is false, it is inconceivable and totally incomprehensible that Najib should have chosen not to refute Burmaa’s allegation.

In fact, Najib seems so worried about the publicity of the picture that his secretary called editors in the local press and requested them not to blow up the issue. This resulted in the explosive story being absent from the local headlines the next day. (In one Chinese paper – Guang Ming – the Najib story hit the front page in the evening edition, but disappeared completely by the next morning). And of course, Anwar Ibrahim’s criticism of the trial and his specific call on Najib to clarify the issue of the picture during a press conference was generally blacked out.

However, despite such new suppression, irreversible damage is done. There is little doubt that Najib is deeply troubled and his political position seriously weakened.

Manipulation

That this murder case has been subjected to serious political manipulation has been obvious from the very start, when the police commenced their highly questionable investigation, right through to the present trial when the conduct of lawyers for both sides appear increasingly dubious. Instead of the prosecutor seeking the truth and the defense lawyer fighting for the accused, both seem preoccupied with an overriding mission – to prevent the whole truth from emerging. Their combined efforts to cover up the issue of the immigration record and the identity of Najib Razak in the picture are just two examples of such conduct.

The highly irregular nature of this case was also marked by frequent and mysterious changes of legal personnel, resulting in a complete changeover of the defense team, the prosecutors and the judge even before the hearings began. These weird phenomena were crowned by the shock appearance of a new team of prosecutors who were appointed only hours before the hearing was supposed to begin, thus necessitating an impromptu postponement of the trial for two weeks. None of these changes of legal personnel has been properly explained, except for the resignation of Abdul Razak’s first lawyer; Zulkifli Noordin, quit, he said, because of “serious interference by third parties”.

Under these circumstances, the public must brace itself for more aberrant scenarios from this court, while Najib and his supporters may have to keep their fingers crossed in the days ahead when many more witnesses have yet to walk through what must appear to Najib as a minefield.

On a more serious note, this unseemly trial does not exactly add credit to Malaysia’s system, whose already wretched image has just been further mauled by the shameful finale of another sham trial – that of Eric Chia of Perwaja Steel fame. After seven long years of investigations and three years of court hearings, that case was thrown out due to lack of prima facie evidence. With that, the long-drawn out Perwaja Steel saga ended without finding any culprit for the mountain of losses (more than RM 10 billion) suffered by taxpayers.

There has been a spate of criminal cases being dismissed of late due to inadequate investigations and poor prosecution, indicating that the downward slide of our criminal justice system, which began in the Mahathir era, has gotten worse under Abdullah Badawi’s leadership. With the criminal justice system in a shambles, the rule of law is in jeopardy. And that is an important benchmark to judge the efficacy of Abdullah’s administration vis-à-vis his reform agenda.

Testimony in an earlier court case has established an intimate personal and financial connection between Altantuya and a close aide to Mr Najib, who was defence minister at the time of the submarine deal.

The aide, Abdul Razak Baginda, was acquitted by a court last November of being an accessory in the murder. He has since been working on a doctorate at Trinity College, Oxford.

Mr Baginda admitted Altantuya was his mistress for about a year and prosecutors said she had demanded money from him after their break-up.

Just before her death, she arrived in Kuala Lumpur, accompanied by a Mongolian shaman, who was to put a curse on Mr Baginda if he did not pay up.

Altantuya was dragged away from outside Mr Baginda's home by two Special Branch officers, but he was acquitted after maintaining that he had never given orders for her to be harmed.

The Liberation expose linking the murder to the shadowy world of arms contracts has embarrassed the French warship firm DCNS. Armaris, a firm now merged with DCNS, sold the three submarines to Malaysia in 2002 for E1 billion.

Attention has centred on why Armaris paid E114 million to a Malaysian company called Perimekar in 2006.

Opposition leaders alleged in parliament that the payment was a "commission" for intermediaries and that Perimekar was secretly owned by Mr Baginda. Mr Najib replied that it was not a "commission" and that Perimekar was a "project services provider". Liberation alleged Altantuya learned of the payment and demanded $US500,000.

DCNS has refused to comment. It is already the subject of a French judicial investigation into corrupt practices. Last week, efforts to contact Mr Baginda, a self-styled political analyst, at his new home in Oxford were unsuccessful.

Mr Najib has avoided public comment but his wife told Agence France Presse that she was "shocked" by attempts to link her husband to the case
Posted by Jihadist at 6:57 PM  


“My informer states that Aziz was the person who placed the C4 on various parts of Altantuya’s body witnessed by Rosmah and Norhayati,” Raja Petra claimed in the document.
“I make this statutory declaration because I have been reliably informed about the involvement of these three people who have thus far not been implicated in the murder nor called as witnesses by the prosecution in the ongoing trial at the Shah Alam High Court.
“I also make this statutory declaration because I am aware that it is a crime not to reveal evidence that may help the police in its investigation of the crime,” read the document, which was first posted on the bigdogdotcomblog run by another blogger.“
He further alleged that he has also been ‘reliably informed’ that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi knows of Najib’s wife alleged involvement.
Najib and Rosmah have repeatedly deniedthey are linked to the killing of Altantuya, describing the widely-known allegations was nothing more than ‘slander and concocted stories’.
The declaration, by Raja Petra Kamaruddin, a well-connected journalist who edits the web publication Malaysia Today and is on trial for sedition charges stemming from a commentary on the case. There is no independent confirmation of Raja Petra’s allegations, and the declaration was ignored by Malaysia’s government-linked mainstream media and one Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer with connections to top United Malays National Organisation figures expressed doubt about it.
In the declaration, Raja Petra claimed that the trio – one of them a prominent woman – were present at the scene during the murder of the Mongolian translator in October 2006.
Copies of the two-paged declaration together with the identity of the trio have been posted on various blog sites.
In the document, Raja Petra said he was “reliably informed” of these allegations. An aide to Najib also said they were aware of this latest claim made by Raja Petra. The aide however refused to comment if any action could be taken against Raja Petra.
Musa said the matter could be sub judice as the Altantuya murder case was still being heard.
He also said Raja Petra must be “brave enough to face the consequences if he is bold enough” to make the allegations.
Meanwhile, the Attorney-General’s Chambers has lodged a police report against Raja Petra over the statutory declaration.
Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail said the allegations were “highly defamatory” and if found untrue, those making the allegations would have to face the consequences.
“We want to investigate because we want the truth. As far as I am concerned, we have to look at it seriously.”
“If it’s true, we will act accordingly. If not, the writer will be investigated,” he said, adding that the report was lodged in Putrajaya on Saturday.
Raja Petra said he expected to be called up.
He said he was bold enough to face the consequences. This is not the first time he is alleging that Najib was involved in Altantuya’s murder, but he has failed to produce any solid proofs besides empty talks so far.
The story adds considerable chaos to the country’s political mix. The Barisan Nasional, the national ruling coalition, is reeling from the loss of its two-thirds majority in March elections. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, taking the brunt of criticism over the loss, has already promised to step down at some future date to cede the premiership to Najib. District elections are due in July in the United Malays National Organisation and there are suspicions that the verdict in the Altantuya murder trial is being delayed until the elections are completed.
Raja Petra wrote that Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, and Acting Colonel Aziz Buyong and his wife, Norhayati, Rosmah’s aide-de-camp, were present at the scene of the murder and that Aziz Buyong was the individual who placed C4 plastic explosive on Altantuya’s body and blew it up. Both Najib and his wife have repeatedly denied any involvement in the case although Kuala Lumpur has been buzzing for months with rumors of their complicity.
Shaariibuu was executed by two shots to the head and her body was blown up with military explosives in a patch of jungle near the suburban city of Shah Alam. One of Najib’s closest friends, Abdul Razak Baginda, once the influential head of a political think-tank, and two of Najib’s bodyguards, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar of the elite Unit Tindak Khas or Special Police Action Unit, are the subjects of a marathon murder trial that got underway more than a year ago.
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has ordered the police to conduct a thorough probe into the murder of a beautiful Mongolian freelance model.
The Prime Minister said Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan informed him about the murder of 28-year-old Altantuya Shaariibuu.
“I told the IGP he had to investigate the case thoroughly and properly.
“Nobody is above the law. That should be remembered,” he said when asked to comment on the high-profile murder that took place about two weeks ago.
The police have detained a 46-year-old prominent political analyst who heads a local think-tank and remanded him for five days from yesterday to facilitate investigation.
On the involvement of police personnel in the murder, Abdullah, who is also Internal Security Minister, said action must be taken against anybody found guilty under the law.
Three police personnel — a chief inspector, a lance corporal and a constable — have also been remanded to assist investigation into the gruesome killing of Altantuya, who was shot before her body was blown up to bits in a secondary jungle in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam.
The woman arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 9 with her sister and a cousin in search of the political analyst whom she claimed fathered her 16-month-old son.
Altantuya’s case came to light after her sister lodged a police report following her disappearance on Oct 21. Police identified the political analyst, who is said to have befriended the deceased a few years ago, as a suspect.
Earlier, Abdullah launched the Royal Professor Ungku Aziz Chair and the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies at Universiti Malaya.
Neither Najib nor his chief of staff, Musa Safri, has been questioned nor summoned to testify despite the fact that Baginda, in a sworn statement in November 2006, said he had contacted Musa for help in dealing with Altantuya, his jilted lover who was demanding money. That statement raised suspicions that all sides in the court – prosecution, defense and judiciary – are struggling to keep the case under wraps. The trial has been subject to numerous delays for reasons that are unclear.
Raja Petra himself is due to go on trial in October on sedition charges that were filed against him for writing an article titled “Let’s Send Altantuya’s Murderers to Hell.” In that piece, he accused Najib, his wife and others of complicity in the murder. He amplified the statement considerably in his statutory declaration, made last Wednesday, in which he also said that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had seen a full report by military intelligence on the involvement of the deputy premier’s family. Badawi gave the intelligence report to his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, for safekeeping, according to Raja Petra’s statement.
Raja Petra, a member of the Selangor royal family, also wrote that one of the country’s sultans had been given a full report on the matter. He didn’t identify the sultan, but if his statements are true it means that at least one member of royalty may be able to back up his declaration, which was not made under oath.
From the time Altantuya’s body was discovered, the case has raised dark questions about the possible involvement of top government figures. Others also believe that the 28-year-old mother of two may have been involved in a much bigger controversy than a jilted relationship. She made several trips to Kuala Lumpur to attempt to confront Baginda, at one point standing in front of his house and screaming “Razak, bastard, come out!” The last time she was seen alive was again in front of his house, when she was bundled into a car and taken away.
She had accompanied Baginda to France when he was involved in negotiating the purchase of two Scorpene submarines and a used Agosta submarine produced by the French government through a French-Spanish joint venture, Armaris, for the Malaysian defense ministry, which was headed by Najib as minister. The submarines were bought through a Kuala Lumpur-based company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, which at the time was owned by yet another company, Ombak Laut, which was wholly owned by Abdul Razak Baginda.
The €1 billion (RM4.5 billion) contract to buy the submarines was non-competitive and netted Perimekar €114 million. Although Najib has sworn an oath to Allah that he had never met the woman, he was in France at the same time as Najib, one of his best friends, was there, dealing with matters over the submarine. A cousin of Altantuya’s testified at the trial that she had seen a picture of Najib together with the dead woman, but she was quickly hushed up by both defense and prosecution lawyers about the matter and the picture has not been produced.
Altantuya admitted in a letter discovered after her death that she had been blackmailing Abdul Razak, presumably to keep his family from finding out about their relationship. But in his statement to the police, Baginda said he had already informed his family of the relationship; he said she was pressuring him for US$500,000. Her father, Setev Shaariibuu, a psychology professor in Ulan Bataar, has said she was killed because she “knew too much,” although he has never elaborated on that statement.
Given the close relationship between the two men, and that Najib was reported as presenting jackets made available by Perimekar to the submarine crews training in France, and that Altantuya was traveling with Baginda, it is difficult to understand why the court has not pursued the issue of whether they met.
It is also difficult to understand, given published reports, plus the fact that the accused Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar were members of Najib’s own bodyguard unit, that neither Najib nor Musa has been questioned about how the bodyguards came to be accused of Altantuya’s murder.
There have been many other discrepancies as well. Prosecutorial setbacks over the course of the trial have endangered the case. Sirul’s purported confession has been thrown out. The prosecution has attempted to impeach one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, Rohaniza Roslan, a 28-year-old policewoman and Azilah’s girlfriend. Rohaniza said she had seen the victim bundled into a red Proton car and taken away. Later, in court, she said she had been “tortured and coaxed” by police interrogators into signing that statement; she then offered the court a version of events that differed considerably from her initial account.
“The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor cannot remain silent on the latest bombshell,” wrote Lim Kit Siang, leader of the opposition Democratic Action Party. “The credibility and legitimacy of the Abdullah premiership and government will suffer a mortal blow if Abdullah, Najib and Rosmah remain silent on Raja Petra’s bombshell allegations.”
Raja Petra Kamarudin has made a serious statutory declaration on June 18 alleging that Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib’s wife, was at the murder scene of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006. Whether the allegation is truth or not is not known… in fact only very few people would know at the moment. RPK has shown his courage over the years, some say he is abusing his influence to bully the politicians.
Altantuya was last seen on Oct 19, 2006 as she was being bundled into a car outside Abdul Razak’s home.
ANWAR TO NAJIB: “Nothing personal!”
(Courtesy of MalaysiakiniTV 29 June 2007)
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has been asked to explain the claim made in a court testimonial today that he had been photographed with murdered Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu. PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim said it was all the more compelling for the deputy premier to explain since he had previously denied having met her.
THE MONGOLIAN PM WROTE TO THE MALAYSIAN PM BUT NEVER GOT A RESPONSE…
Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa (Mongolian language: Шаарийбуугийн Алтантуяа; sometimes alsoAltantuya Shaariibuu; 1978 – 2006), a Mongolian national, was a murder victim who was either murdered byC-4 explosives or was somehow killed first and her remains destroyed with C-4 in October 2006 in a deserted area in Shah Alam, Malaysia near Kuala Lumpur.
Altantuyaa was born in 1978. Her parents raised her and her sister while they worked in Russia where Altantuyaa started first grade elementary school. She was reportedly fluent in Mongolian, Russian, Chinese and English.
Altantuyaa moved back to Mongolia in 1990 and a few years later, married a Mongolian techno singer, Maadai. They had a child in 1996 but the marriage ended in divorce and the child went to live with Altantuyaa’s parents.
Despite training as a teacher, Altantuyaa briefly moved to France where she attended modeling school before returning to Mongolia. She only modeled part-time, for a brief time also opening a tour business in Mongolia.
Altantuyaa remarried and had another child in 2003 but the second marriage also ended in divorce (this is questionable). The second child also lives with Altantuyaa’s parents. Her mother said she never been a model.
She moved to Hong Kong in 2005, it was around this time she met Abdul Razak Baginda, a defense analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre think-tank, reportedly beginning a relationship with him. Initial reports of Altantuya having a child with Abdul Razak have been proven to be untrue.
Some sources allege that Altantuya came to Kuala Lumpur with a cousin in early October 2006 intending to confront Abdul Razak. When she went missing on Oct 19, her cousin lodged a police report and sought help from the Mongolian embassy in Bangkok.
Malaysian police found fragments of bone, later verified as hers, in forested land near the Subang Dam in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam. Police investigation of her remains revealed that she was shot twice before C-4 explosives were used on her remains, although there has been later suggestion that the C-4 explosives may have killed her. When her remains were found their identity could only be confirmed with DNA testing. The provenance of the C-4 remains unclear.
Abdul Razak and three members of the police force were arrested during the murder investigation. The two murder suspects have been named as Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 30 and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, 35. They had been members of the elite Unit Tindakan Khas (the Malaysian Police Special Action Force or counter-terrorism unit) and were both assigned to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who was also the Defence Minister at the time of the murder. Abdul Razak has been charged with abetment in the murder.
Altantuya’s brutal murder received wide, detailed coverage in Malaysia, Mongolia and other Asian countries.
The trial was originally going to be held in March 2007, but was postponed until the 4th of June 2007. Due to controversial and last-minute changes in the prosecution and defence teams, and the presiding judge, the trial was again postponed until 18 June 2007. The pre-trial preparations have seen both the prosecution and defence teams level accusations of evidential impropriety at one another.
During the trial there was an incident between Baginda’s wife and the victim’s father.
In a statutory declaration in his sedition trial in October 2008, Raja Petra accused Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor (the wife of Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak) of being one of three individuals who were present at the crime scene when Altantuya Shaariibuu was murdered on Oct 19, 2006. He wrote that wrote that Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, and Acting Colonel Aziz Buyong and his wife, Norhayati, Rosmah’s aide-de-camp, were present at the scene of the murder and that Aziz Buyong was the individual who placed C4 plastic explosive on Altantuya’s body and blew it up.