GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc Updated March 20, 2009 12:00
Upon winning unopposed in end-March as head of his ruling UMNO party, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak will become the new PM. Charges of sleaze have stained his political rise. Now a report in French paper Liberation, of ties to a murdered Mongolian model, threatens his career. Reprinted in two parts is the English version, “The Altantuya Case: How and Why She Was Killed”, with permission from author Arnaud Dubus. Writing from Kuala Lumpur, Ulan Bator and Paris, Dubus presents a gripping investigative account:
Things turned dramatic Oct. 2006. Altantuya Sharibu got word that the “commission” from French-Spanish company Armaris had arrived at a Malaysian bank account. It had been paid to Perimekar, a company owned by Abdul Razak Baginda, intermediary of deputy PM and defense minister Najib Razak. Altantuya rushed to Kuala Lumpur to claim her share of the “commission” from Baginda; she said she was entitled to $500,000. Baginda and Altantuya had broken up prior to this. A jealous Rosmah Mansor, the feared businesswoman-wife of Najib Razak, objected to any payment to Altantuya.
Altantuya had arrived with two other Mongolian women, one of them a shaman tasked to put a spell on Baginda if he refused to pay up. For days Altantuya harassed her ex-lover. On Oct. 18 Baginda could no longer tolerate the daily scenes she made in front of his house. He contacted Musa Safrie, the director of the Special Branch and Najib Razak’s aide de camp.
On Oct. 19 just before 9 p.m. two Special Branch agents, Azilah Hadridan and Sirul Omar, were sent to Baginda’s house where Altantuya was gesticulating and yelling outside. They had the order to “neutralize the Chinese woman.” They kidnapped and drove her ten kilometers away and shot her several times. Then they destroyed her body with C4 explosives, a type that can only be obtained from within the Defense Ministry. Her entry into Malaysia was erased from immigration records. It would appear that Altantuya had never come to Malaysia; no trace was left of her.
There is no perfect crime. The taxi driver hired by Altantuya for the day did not relish that his passenger was abducted before his eyes without payment for the fare. He took note of the abductors’ car plate and filed a complaint at the local police station. Within days the police identified the car as government-owned. Events unfolded that even a deputy prime minister could not impede. Najib Razak tried to cover up. A few hours before Baginda’s arrest, he sent him an SMS: “I will see the Inspector General of Police at 11 a.m. today... The problem will be solved. Stay calm.” Still Baginda was arrested, along with the two Special Branch officers, Azilah and Sirul.
After a trial considered dubious by many observers, Baginda was acquitted of ordering the murder, and released in Nov. 2008. Accused of committing the murder, Azilah and Sirul appeared in court last month. If convicted, they face death. The verdict is due on Apr. 9.
Thousands of miles away in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Batur, Sharibu Setev, Altantuya’s father, is trying to control his anger. To him and his family, Baginda’s acquittal and release depict Malaysia’s unjust judicial process. “The Malaysian government is not even answering letters from the Mongolian Foreign Ministry,” he says. When Sharibu went to Malaysia’s Parliament House to meet Najib Razak, the deputy prime minister sneaked out a back door to avoid embarrassing encounter. The Altantuya case has become a key element of the Malaysian political game between Najib Razak and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. So far Najib Razak has steered around the obstacles, but the murder of the young Mongolian remains a sword hanging over his head.
An obscured facet of the Altantuya case is the role of Armaris. In Oct. 2007 Malaysian deputy defense minister Zainal Abdidin Zin acknowledged in Parliament that Armaris had paid 114 million euros in “commission” to Baginda’s Perimekar. It was not a bribe, he maintained, but payment for “support and coordination services.” Was there corruption as in the Taiwanese frigates in which the French DCNS firm 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 curt reply of the DCNS press officer in Paris. A document that could prove a link between Altantuya and the French company is the guarantee letter written by Baginda so that his mistress could obtain a visa to enter the Schengen zone (of which France is a member-country). The French embassy could not refuse this favor to a man decorated with the Legion d’Honneur. But the role of Altantuya in the submarines negotiation is still unclear. Intelligence agencies find her background intriguing and the Russian FSB (ex-KGB) is following closely the case.
In Ulan Batur, Altantuya’s eldest son Mungunshagai, 12, is traumatized by his mother’s death. The youngest, Altanshagai, 5, is mentally handicapped and has not understood that he will never see her again. “He asks for her all the time, sitting in wait on his chair the whole day,” says Altantuya’s father Sharibu Setev. “Every evening, I bring him sweets and tell him that his mother gave it to me for him.” As for Baginda, he resettled in the United Kingdom with his family. He never uttered a word of regret about the deadly fate of the one who shared his life for two years.
1 comment:
Anonymous Says:
NAJIS THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE WHOLE WORLD, THE PEEM IN WAITING FOR MALAYSIA, IMPLICATED WITH MURDER AND CORRUPTION HAS NO SHAME OR DIGNITY BUT TRY BULLYING HIS WAY UP THE PEEM POST, SUCH PERSON MUST BE SHUNNED AND BOYCOTTED BY ALL WORLD LEADERS AND BY ALL.
ROSMAH CRYING CROCODILE TEARS, AS FOR THE C4 AND THE POLICE BODY GUARDS THAT WERE USED TO ANNIHILATE THE NAJIS' MISTRESS ALTANTUYA BY BLOWING HER BODY UP INTO SMITHEREENS TO SATISFY THE GREAT JEALOUSY AND GREAT ANGER SHE HAD BEEN HARBOURING AND SEETHING FROM AND ALSO AT THE SAME TIME TO GET THEIR IMMIGRATION CONTACTS TO DELETE ATLANTUYA ENTRY RECORDS. BUT PI BALA GONE MISSING AFTER EATING FISHHEAD CURRY NEAR THE BRICKFIELDS POLICE STATION WHO RECANTED HIS FIRST SD WITH ANOTHER SD THE NEXT DAY UNDER DURESS FROM FISHHEAD CURRY TREATMENT FROM SOME POLICE C4 OR COULD HE HAD BEEN C4ED BY NOW AFTER DISAPPEARING FOR A VERY LONG TIME AND NOW LEFT 2 POLICE PERSONNEL IS LEFT TO BE THE SCAPEGOAT FOR THE MURDER WITHOUT A VALID MOTIVE?
KARPAL SINGH, GOBIND SINGH DEO, ALTANTUYA & ANY OR ALL OPPOSITIONS AGAINST NAJIS IS SQUASHED IN ORDER SO THAT THE SAID STIMULUS OF RM 60 BILLION FROM THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT COFFERS WHICH ARE NOW BEING DEPLETED BY NAJIS AND ONLY BENEFITING NAJIS’ CRONIES ARE THE ONLY ONES ESPECIALLY HIS SPECIAL PIMP/PARTNER RAZAK BAGINDA WHO ALREADY RECEIVED A SECRET COMMISSION OF 114 MILLION EUROS INTO HIS COMPANY AS INTERMEDIARY TO THE SUBMARINES, HELICOPTERS AND AIRCRAFTS PURCHASES FOR THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
WHERE ELSE CAN MALAYSIA GO AFTER 51 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE???
THE SEWERS OF COURSE WITH NAJIS AT THE HELM AS PEEM BECAUSE ALL EVIDENCES HAD SHOWN HIS GUILT LIKE THE SMSES HE SENT TO RAZAK BAGINDA’S LAWYER, HIS POLICE BODY GUARDS, WERE INDICTED AS WELL, BUT NOT SOMEONE’S ELSE???
If the PeeM in waiting can be implicated in Murder and Corruption then why the Police Murderers & Autopsy Pathologist & now the double faced snaky diplomat who want to keep his job cannot do the same with impunity, they are just following the footsteps of their revered leader Najis who had done very well in swearing to Allah on the Koran and every one of them can learn on how to swear their innocence despite all evidences have shown their Guilt, so only Allah can give them the real Judgement come Judgement Day as there is no escape from Allah’s real Justice for the deeds they have done.
Bandit Najis had been cheating and robbing the Nation’s Coffers for years with fictitious and non existent Defence Contracts, with either non supply necessary or supply with inferior quality products, by awarding these to his wife’s nominee Companies.
Loser, Loser & Loser Najis UMNO & BN therefore the biased EC must choose the same date so that they can try to cheat by using Phantom Voters if the Pakatan is not too careful on all three fronts.
History will repeat itself the most corrupted of all, implicated in Corruption & Murder, call Najis will helm UMNO to oblivion.
Beware of the Najis & UMNO underhand deceits, filthy lies and dirty tactics which must be exposed so that they will be shunned by all Rakyats in order to be thrown out in the next GE.
The Era of Anarchy has just begun in the coming Premiership of Najis, the most corrupted of all corrupters, all Malaysians beware that they, Najis & UMNO, will spend Government Money to buy Chaos in order to impose Dictatorial Government without election or after they have lost the Election in GE 13, we have all learnt from Perak Government’s takeover by deceit and by force of using the Police Force which could be bought and the Assemblymen who were bought either with money or in kind like no case in court for their corruptions’ cases pending trials if they defect from Pakatan and of course the sole DAP betrayer could be bought with a great sum of money as Najis knew and as well as the betrayer that she could never be elected ever again in Jelapang and of course the pension sum must be huge including allowance for her permanent retirement for making a betrayal to Pakatan for short term benefiting of Najis?
There must be a good reason for the Sultan well learned in law and also once holding the highest office in Supreme Court took a lowly decision in support of the most corrupted Politician call Najis, PeeM in awaiting. No offence intended to the Sultan who was highly regarded until just now only, it is either he has been threatened with some secret files on him held by Najis, or like all the other froggies that had been lured by huge sums of money offered by the most greedy of Corrupters called Najis who used the nation’s coffers as his own kitty bank. Knowing very well that Najis would not last the next GE, this is the best opportunity to make some good cash funds for keeps as the next Government under PKR will be clean and righteous for the God, King, People and Country.
Not realizing that Corruptions breed even more Corruptions and this is the vicious circle and the people of Perak are ones who would suffer in the long run and they will not forget what a Sultan they have had. If Najis and UMNO is in Power it is most likely that the nation’s coffers would be decimated and there will be nothing left for our Children’s Children, therefore make sure the UMNO along with all their goons are thrown out the next election.
May Allah bless you the people of Malaysia
Post a Comment