12 July, 2008
"He thought he had hit a golden vein with the Mongolian case but the opposite happened. His business slumped, the loans piled up and now everyone is gunning for him," said a friend of his, Raja Sundram Pillay, 43.
The South China Morning Post
A small-time private investigator has become the focus of national attention in Malaysia, caught up in the crossfire as two of the country's political giants trade allegations of sex, lies, murder and sodomy in the battle to become the country's next prime minister.
P. Balasubramaniam, or PI Bala, as the media have dubbed the 41-year-old former policeman, burst into the limelight on July 2 when he appeared at a news conference alongside opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
PI Bala issued a sworn declaration alleging that Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Anwar's rival for the prime minister's post, had an affair with Altantuya Shaariibuu, the 28-year-old Mongolian model murdered in October 2006.
PI Bala claimed that Abdul Razak Baginda, a close friend and political adviser of Najib, had told him about Najib's affair with Altantuya, suspicions that Najib has repeatedly denied. PI Bala's allegations linked Najib to the crime, as Abdul Razak, who had hired PI Bala to keep Altantuya, his former lover, from harassing him for money, is on trial for abetting her murder.
Two police officers who guarded Najib have been charged with the killing, in which her body was blown up after she was shot and the remains found in a jungle clearing. Hearings concluded last month and a verdict is pending.
Overnight, PI Bala became a national hero.
"Here was a man who had bravely stepped forward to reveal the truth about the case that has clouded the public mind for over two years ... we all said: 'What a brave man'," said opposition lawmaker M. Kulasegaran.
Unfortunately, as the lawmaker points out, "we are now back to square one".
That's because the very next day PI Bala again stunned the nation — by retracting his allegations at another hurriedly called news conference.
This time it was not Anwar who stood beside him but the private investigator's lawyer, as he claimed his statement a day earlier was false and made under duress. He released a second sworn statement in which he said Najib did not have an affair and was unconnected to the murdered Altantuya.
PI Bala fled the country the same day with his wife and three young children, leaving Najib's political camp all smiles and Anwar's people scrambling for cover. He also left behind two pet Rottweilers in their cages and without food. One dog was named Monty, a popular local name for dogs, the other, interestingly enough, Shaariibuu.
Criminal Investigation Department director Bakri Zinin said this week they had tracked him to "a location in Southeast Asia". PI Bala had left Malaysia of his own accord, and was a free man, Bakri said. "I will not reveal his whereabouts as it will jeopardise our ongoing investigations into his sworn statements."
PI Bala is believed by friends and police to be in Singapore and, depending on who you talk to, he is either in hiding or holidaying until the storm blows over. To some, he is being held against his will, while others say he is waiting only to return to a life of quiet luxury without having to work again.
"He thought he had hit a golden vein with the Mongolian case but the opposite happened. His business slumped, the loans piled up and now everyone is gunning for him," said a friend of his, Raja Sundram Pillay, 43.
The government told Parliament on Thursday that PI Bala left of his own accord because he had received death threats after retracting his first testimony — implying that Anwar's camp was after him.
Significantly, PI Bala worked with the Special Branch, a part of the police force that monitors political opponents. But he left under a cloud seven years ago over an incident involving his service revolver, his former colleagues said.
Without a pension and with few friends outside the police force, he set up business as a private investigator mostly working for lawyers to collect evidence for divorce cases — a job that pays about RM50 an hour.
It was a struggle, his friends said, but everything changed for PI Bala on Nov 25 last year when he had a political awakening. On that day thousands of ethnic Indians demonstrated in the capital for equality, claiming the government had discriminated against them.
"I met him at the protest rally and later the both of us and a few others formed an informal group to fight for our rights," said a friend named Raja.
"He was a man of few words but a solid supporter of the cause," said Raja. They campaigned for the opposition in the March 8 general election, rare behaviour for a former civil servant.
Opposition lawmaker Sivenesan Achuthan said: "He worked for my campaign day and night as an unpaid volunteer. He slept on the office floor and ate what was on offer … he never complained. I owe my victory to Bala and his friends."
In campaigning for Indian rights, PI Bala developed links with Anwar's PKR party to whose leaders, it is now speculated, he had related "inside stories" of the time he had worked as a private investigator for Abdul Razak.
As he delved deeper into politics, PI Bala's business suffered.
"Bala asked me to put the word out that he needed jobs,” said a lawyer close to PI Bala, who declined to be named. "I recommended him to my colleagues but don't know the outcome."
On Wednesday, a poll conducted by the Malaysiakini.com website showed that 92 per cent of 6,400 readers polled believed PI Bala was forced to retract his first sworn statement.
But while PI Bala might have the public behind him, his friends and relatives are disappointed that he fled.
Thanaletchumi Arumugam, a friend, said she managed to raise him after he left the country, but he was very reluctant to speak. "He sounded like a hounded man," she said. "I hung up immediately as he was having great difficulty speaking. It was as if someone was pointing a gun at his head."
No comments:
Post a Comment