KUALALUMPUR: His father had whispered something and the accused appeared agitated. When the court adjourned for recess, the accused banged and kicked the door, yelling: “You can die, Pak Lah! Die, Pak Lah! I am innocent. I am innocent.”
In a startling new twist to the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case, WikiLeaks had revealed diplomatic cables hinting that former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, known as Pak Lah, might had attempted to fix up his then deputy, Najib Tun Razak.
The case which haunts Najib to this day, had come close to derailing his ambition of becoming prime minister when one of his confidants, Abdul Razak Baginda, was charged with abetting the murder of the Mongolian national.
Razak was eventually acquitted while Najib had forced Abdullah to hand over the reins after Barisan Nasional’s (BN) dismal performance in the 2008 general election.
In the WikiLeaks disclosure to the Asian Sentinel, the conspiracy theory implicating Abdullah was found in a February 2008 cable from the US embassy’s political section chief Mark D Clark.
During the trial, Clark wrote, Razak “appeared uneasy throughout the morning session of court on Feb 20. Razak’s father, Abdullah Malim Baginda, had whispered something to him shortly before the trial had begun for the morning and apparently upset the accused.
“Razak remained quiet throughout the morning hearing, but just after the noon recess was called and as he was leaving the courtroom he kicked and banged the door and yelled ‘You can die, Pak Lah! Die, Pak Lah! I am innocent. I am innocent’. He was later seen crying before his lawyer while his mother attempted to comfort him.”
‘The Sun told to withdraw copies’
The embassy official also noted that local newspapers and the government news service Bernama had reported the outburt, but did not print his statements.
“The short-lived exception was the English language newspaper The Sun, which included the quotations from Razak in its early morning Feb 21 edition. Sources at the newspaper confirmed to us in confidence that the Ministry of Internal Security (Home Ministry) compelled The Sun to withdraw and recall thousands of copies of their first-run paper in which the original quote was included. Prime Minister Abdullah serves concurrently as Minister of Internal Security.”
Clark said that speculation was rife in Malaysia’s online community on what had sparked off the outburst, including conspiracy theories alleging that the Prime Minister’s Office had urged Razak to implicate Najib, and in return, the accused would be spared the guilty verdict and mandatory death sentence.
“Regardless, the Internal Security Ministry would want to limit any possibly inflammatory reference to the prime minister at the trial, and particularly at this juncture due to the proximity of Malaysia’s general election to be held on March 8.
“Any connection between the prime minister and the murder trial would be scandalous. The GOM (Government of Malaysia) reportedly has worked hard to ‘drive (the case) from public view’… and is not about to allow the case to influence the coming election,” read the cable.
Based on the cables provided by WikiLeaks, the Asian Sentinel reported that the US embassy here followed the trial closely and frequently discussed whether Najib was involved in the killing.
The diplomats, like much of the public, also speculated that the trial was being deliberately delayed and feared what one cable called “prosecutorial misconduct” that was being politically manipulated.
The embassy officials had based their concerns on sources within the prosecution, government and the political opposition.
‘Razak’s wife in contact with Anwar’
The cables, stated the report, were replete with accounts of a long series of meetings with Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, who repeatedly told the Americans that Najib was connected to corrupt practices in the acquisition of submarines as well as the purchase of Sukhoi Su-MCM-30 Flanker fighter jets from Russia.
Anwar, it added, also called attention to Najib’s connection to the Altantuya case.
In a Jan 24, 2007 cable marked “secret”, it was written that “perceived irregularities on the part of prosecutors and the court, and the alleged destruction of some evidence, suggested to many that the case was subject to strong political pressure intended to protect Najib”.
On Feb 1, 2008, Clark wrote that a deputy prosecutor had informed him “there was almost no chance of winning guilty verdicts in the ongoing trial of defendants Razak, a close adviser to Najib, and two police officers. She described the trial as interminably long.”
“Clark called the trial a ‘a prosecutorial embarrassment’ from its inception, leading many to speculate that the ineptitude was by design. On the eve of the trial, Malaysia’s Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail dropped his lead prosecutors and replaced them with less experienced attorneys. Similarly, a lead counsel for one of the defendants abruptly resigned before the trial ‘because of (political) attempts to interfere with a defence he had proposed, in particular to protect an unnamed third party.’”
The protracted nature of the case, Clark said, led “at least one regional newspaper to speculate that ‘the case is being deliberately delayed to drive it from public view. Malaysia’s daily newspapers rarely mention the case’s latest developments, and it is unprecedented in Malaysian judicial history that a murder trial could drag on for seven months and still not give the defence an opportunity to present its case. Such an environment has led many to conclude that the case was too politically sensitive to yield a verdict before the anticipated general election.”
Meanwhile, a January 2007 cable touched on Razak’s affidavit confirming that he sought the help of Musa Safri, later identified as Najib’s aide-de-camp, in ridding him of the jilted woman, and in other cables pointed out that Musa had never been called for questioning.
In another cable, dated May 16, 2007, Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, a deputy home minister in
Abdullah’s cabinet, told US Embassy officials that he was “certain that government prosecutors would limit their trial activities to the murder itself and the three defendants; prosecutors would not follow up on allegations of related corruption or other suspects”.
In a cable marked “secret” on Jan 27, 2007, embassy officials wrote: “In December we heard from one of (Anwar’s) lawyers that Razak’s wife was in contact with Anwar and (Anwar’s wife Dr )Wan Azizah (Wan Ismail), suggesting one possible source for Anwar’s information.”
In April 2009, two police officers from the special operations force, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 30, and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, 35, were found guilty of murdering Altantuya.
The murder was tied closely to the US$1 billion acquisition of French submarines by the Malaysian defence ministry during Najib’s tenure as defence minister. Altantuya reportedly acted as a translator on the transaction, which netted Razak’s company a €114 million “commission” on the purchase.
According to reports, Altantuya had been offered US$500,000 for her part in translating and after she was jilted, she vainly demanded payment. In a letter she had written, made public after her death, Altantuya said she regretted attempting to “blackmail” Razak.
French lawyers are investigating whether some of the €114 million was kicked back to French or Malaysian politicians
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WIKILEAK WEBSITE TRUE STORY HOW NAJIB WAS INVOLVE IN THE BRUTAL MURDER OFALTANTUYA SHAARIIBUU
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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Today, run by self-exiled blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin yesterday announced a team-up with renowned whistleblower website WikiLeaks, led by Julian Assange.
Raja Petra’s controversial blog has rocked Malaysian politics since its creation in August 2004, exposing everything from corrupt low-ranked civil servants to the alleged involvement of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor in the Altantuya Shariibuu murder case in November 2006.
His posts had even resulted in him being arrested under the draconian Internal Security Act in September 2008.
Just recently, Raja Petra granted an interview to the Umno-owned TV3, urging authorities to investigate a statutory declaration claiming that Rosmah had been personally involved in the brutal murder of Altantuya.
WikiLeaks, launched in 2006, made world headlines due to its exposure of US documents related to the conflicts in both Iran and Afghanistan.
The website specialises in the publication of private, secret, and classified information from anonymous news sources, news leaks and whistle-blowers.
Assange who in 2009 was awarded Amnesty International’s Media Award, appealed against a decision by UK courts to have him extradited to Sweden to face charges related to sex crimes, which he had denied committing.
As a result, he must report to the police station in Beccles, Suffolk, on a daily basis.
The news of the MoU was carried on Malaysia Today itself, accompanied by photographs of a smiling Raja Petra and Assange shaking hands over the Memorandum of Understanding.
SCORPENES:THE FRENCH ARE OILING THE OLD GUILIOTINE NOW ROSMA’S EXECUTION FRENCH LAWYERS TO COME TO KL AHEAD OF OPEN COURT HEARING
FRENCH LAWYERS ACTING FOR SUARAM ARE DUE TO COME TO KUALA LUMPUR IN LATE JUNE OR JULY TO BRIEF THEIR CLIENT ON THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT IN PRIME MINISTER NAJIB RAZAK’S HIGH-COST PURCHASE OF THREE SUBMARINES FROM EUROPEAN ARMS-MAKER DCNS.
SUARAM had on behalf of Malaysian taxpayers filed a suit against DCNS in December 2009 at the courts in Paris for “active and passive corruption, trading of favours and abuse of corporate assets”.
The civil rights group had been concerned there was ‘hanky-panky’ in the deal, the cost of which would ultimately have to be borne by Malaysian taxpayers. SUARAM suspected kickbacks worth hundreds of millions of ringgit had been hidden in the transaction and called on the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission to investigate, but to no avail.
Also, despite constant grilling, Najib has kept the details of the transaction top secret while other members of his administration have provided only fuzzy details, even to Parliament.
“The lawyers are due to arrive and brief their client on the latest ahead of the hearing which will take place in open court. Once that happens, you can imagine what is next. Everyone will be very busy and the international media will be all over the place,” the source told Malaysia Chronicle.
A Parisian court is due to hear the case and a hearing date was initially slated for May-June, but that may now have to be slightly delayed as SUARAM is applying for an investigative judge to preside.
Briefings at various venues
There is enormous public interest in the case, not only because intertwined into the submarines acquisition was a murder most foul, but because the purchase was deemed to be extremely overpriced. There is also concern that the 2 Scorpenes do not work properly as in the weeks after arrival last year, they failed to dive. The third submarine is a second-hand Agosta.
Apart from that, when Najib first mooted the purchase in the early 2000s, Malaysians had protested, arguing that the submarines were not suitable for guarding the nation’s shallow coastline and the cost was also unjustifiable.
But the BN government hammered the deal through, and so far, it has cost Malaysia at least RM6.7 billion ringgit, excluding add-on service fees which could push the total acquisition package to above RM10 billion in the next few years.
The deal had been sanctioned by Najib – who was then Defense minister. He was accused of benefiting his close friend Razak Baginda with a 114 million euros commission.
Debauchery
The Malaysian prime minister and his wife Rosmah Mansor were also accused of being involved in the murder of a Mongolian translator, who had helped in the communications with DCNS. The 28-year old Altantuya Shaariibuu was murdered in KL by two former bodguards of the Malaysian first couple.
Both men, who were members of an elite police squad, have been sentenced to hang but the nation is unconvinced as they had no motive to kill her. The question still raging in Malaysia is, who ordered the killing?
The Parisian hearing will not dwell on the Altantuya murder but DCNS is likely to be grilled on her role in the deal.
Altantuya, who was shot in head and exploded with military C4 explosives, has become an international icon symbolising the ruthlessness and desperation in the murky world of international arms wheeling-and-dealing. She is also a reflection of the level of debauchery amongst the Umno elite. Umno is Najib’s party and has ruled Malaysia for 5 decades.
Under the 2000 OECD convention of which France is a party, anyone French individual or company found to be involved in corrupt deals with foreign governments can be punished with 10 years imprisonment and a Euro 150,000 fine. This ruling provided the impetus for the SUARAM move to try and recover taxpayers’ money lost through improper transactions.
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