KUALA LUMPUR: Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah never expected this. Sometime ago, a military intelligence officer told him a story linking the Prime Minister’s wife with the murder of Mongolian model, Altantuya Shaariibuu.
The Kelantan prince had no way of knowing whether the story was factual or a yarn spun by someone with a fertile imagination. He filed it away in his cranium, forgot about it and went about his business. But now blogosphere is buzzing with the veteran Umno politician’s name right in the centre of an explosive posting by Raja Petra Kamarudin.
RPK, as the blogger is popularly known, posted on his blog yesterday an alleged transcript of an interrogation by Special Branch officers while he was detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) last year.
He claims in his blog that during the interrogation, he named the source of his allegations against Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor as Lt Kol Azmi Zainal Abidin, whom he also claims to be a military intelligence officer.
RPK, who went on the lam last month after failing to turn up in court for his sedition trial, further claims that he had checked with an aide of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah on the information provided by Lt Kol Azmi.
An aide to Tengku Razaleigh confirmed to The Malaysian Insider today that the Kelantan prince had been told the same story by Lt Kol Azmi which allegedly links Datin Seri Rosmah and the murder of Altantuya, the Mongolian mistress of Abdul Razak Baginda, a close associate of the Prime Minister.
But he pointed out that “many people come and tell us stories.” In his blog, RPK goes on to allege that a man working for Tengku Razaleigh persuaded him to put down the allegations in a statutory declaration.
RPK also claimed in his blog post that a former minister had approached him in an effort to persuade him to stop making allegations Najib.
He claimed the former minister also offered him money, but he declined the offer. The Malaysian Insider were unsuccessful despite several attempts to reach the former minister on his mobile telephone.
RPK, through a separate post on his blog, claimed that he had decided to become a fugitive to avoid being detained and because of a family feud with the Sultan of Selangor over his views on the Perak constitutional crisis.
It is not clear if RPK and his wife are still in the country.
In his latest blog post, RPK has shown he is determined to be thorn in the side of Najib’s administration.
RPK was supposed to go on trial as he has been charged under section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act 1948 which carries a maximum fine of RM5,000 or three years' jail or both upon conviction.
He is accused of publishing the article “Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell” on his Malaysia Today website.
MI
06/05/09
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