These are the INDISPUTABLE facts as we know them. So let's stick to them, i.e. the FACTS.
1. Sometime after 2000 when Najib Tun Razak (now Prime Minister) was re-appointed Defence Minister, the Malaysian Government/Ministry of Defence awarded a contract for the purchase of 2 Scorpene Class Submarines to French DCNS naval shipbuilders, through Armaris in partnership with Navantia of Spain, both state owned companies.
2. The cost of the contract which has now been fulfilled, is estimated at RM6.7 billion (exchange rate 1 Euro=RM5) as follows:
* Submarines-Euro 969,000,000 =RM4,845,000,000
* Missiles etc-Euro 257,000,000 =RM1,270.000,000
* Co-ordination & Support Service Fees Euro114,000,000 =RM 570,000,000
3. The co-ordination and support service fees were paid to Perimekar S/B, a Malaysian company originally owned and controlled by Razak Baginda and his wife, magistrate Mazalinda through Ombak Laut S/B, and which was subsequently divested to Boustead Holdings Bhd Plc (BHB). Baginda was head of a Government sponsored think-tank and a close advisor and friend of Najib. The Government, MINDEF, Navy and a Public Accounts Committee inquiry have determined that all proper Government procurement rules, regulations and procedures were adhered to in the award of the contract to Baginda and that it was NOT a Commission.
4. Perimekar was only incorporated in 2001 shortly before the submarine contract was finalised.
5. It is now claimed by some parties that the fees were paid to Perimekar by the Malaysian Government and not by DCNS.
6. The cost of the submarines does not include an annual maintenance contract of RM50 million for 10 years recently awarded to BousteadDCNS, a subsidiary of BHB OR a 20-year escape, search and rescue contract estimated at RM100 million per year i.e. RM 2 billion over 20 years!
7. Allegations about Perimekar and Boustead's qualification and ability to undertake and perform these massive contracts have been questioned as a sham arrangement by Joseph Breham from a team of French lawyers, as well as by French MP’s and politicians who have filed an inquiry with French courts over charges that DCNS indulged in bribery and paid out huge (illegal) kickbacks routinely in such submarine construction and sales contracts. CLICK HERE . DCNS has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for such irregularities in Taiwan, Pakistan and USA.
8. In 2006 the remains of a Mongolian national, ex-model and translator, Altantuya Shaarribuu, were found in a forest in Shah Alam, Selangor. She had apparently been shot through the head and her body blown up with plastic C4 explosives.
9. Following police investigations, Razak Baginda and two others, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 30, and Corporal Sirul Azahar Umar,35, from the Unit Tindakan Khas or Malaysian Special Action Force Counter Terrorism Unit, were charged with Altantuya's murder. Azilah and Sirul had both been assigned to PM Najib's (deputy PM at the time of the murder) office as his bodyguards.
10. Testimony in court revealed that Altantuya had accompanied Baginda on several trips to France, had an affair with him and arrived in KL demanding US$500,000 from Baginda or threatened to tell all. Baginda was harassed at his home and office by Altantuya and her sisters.
11. Aide-De-Camp to PM Najib, Musa Safri was apparently the officer who had called the three cops who carted Altantuya away in their squad car from outside Razak Baginda’s home.
10. Spotted also outside the gates of Baginda’s house in his car shortly before Altantuya left in the company of Azilah, Sirul and Lance Corporal Rohaniza (Sirul’s lover) was Nasir Safar, a long-time special aide to Najib Razak who in 2010 was forced to resign his post (although to his credit he issued an apology) after making a racist speech about Indians coming to Malaysia as beggars and the Chinese, especially the women, coming here to sell their bodies.
12. At the trial which stretched from June 2007 to April 2009, the following were determined:
* Azilah testified that it was Musa Safri who asked him to contact Baginda to help him out with a “problem.”
* Sirul’s confession that he and Azilah were offered RM100,000 to “take care” of Altantuya and other revelations were not allowed to be admitted into evidence by the presiding judge. Neither Azilah nor Azilah testified as to who made the offer to them.
* Azilah and Sirul maintained till the end they did not kill Altantuya.
* Altantuya’s sister had testified that records of their visit to Malaysia had been erased by Malaysian Immigration and she had seen a photograph of PM Najib, Razak, Altantuya and others having lunch in Paris. PM Najib subsequently took an Islamic oath that he had never met Altantuya personally.
* Razak Baginda, whose lawyer read out an opening statement in which Baginda admitted to the affair with Altantuya, claimed he did not order Altantuya’s murder or have anything to do with it. During a break in the hearing, Baginda had gone berserk shouting ‘Die Pak Lah (M’sian PM up to April 2009) fuelling speculation that some sort of deal was being worked out behind the scenes.
* Baginda was found innocent and acquitted of all charges without his defence being called.
* Azilah and Sirul were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. The matter is still pending finality as their appeals against conviction have not been heard.
13. Subsequently, an ex-cop and private investigator, PI Bala, engaged earlier by Baginda to assist and protect him from the blackmailing Altantuya tendered a Statutory Declaration at a press conference claiming, among other matters, that Baginda had told him PM Najib had introduced Altantuya to him and that Musa Safri was fully implicated in Altantuya’s disappearance. Following a visit to the Brickfields Police Station that same evening Bala completely withdrew his first SD the next morning by the device of a second SD denying all earlier allegations. Shortly afterwards, he then fled to India with his family amid swirling rumours he had been paid $5 million to retract his incendiary original SD after negotiations with parties (friends) purportedly linked to PM Najib’s wife and one of Najib’s brothers acting as intermediaries.
14. Then Bala followed up from somewhere overseas with a third SD and information claiming he had only been paid some RM800,000, been cheated of the rest and that his first SD was the true one which he had been coerced into withdrawing under duress!
15. Next, a weeks ago, “Pete” Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who set the nation on fire with his original 2008 posting at http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/6604/84/ “Let’s Send The Altantuya Murderers To Hell” cleared up the misunderstanding that he had accused PM Najib and his wife of direct complicity in Altantuya’s killing in an interview with TV3. Clearly his SD opens with “I have reliably been informed...” which means it was based on hearsay from third parties. But the MSM, many bloggers, web surfers and even the police read what they wanted to read. Pete who was forced into exile in 2009 is now being vilified for his naivete in granting the interview which TV3 chose to air a day before elections in Sarawak and accused of “selling out” to the UMNO/BN Government led by PM Najib.
That’s it in a nutshell!
So, here are some questions that have been plaguing not just me, but I dare say, millions, and not just Malaysians alone:
1. Why were and still appear to be so, the police and AG not keen on finding out who gave the orders to kill Altantuya and establish clearly the motive(s) for her murder?
2. Why didn’t the AG appeal the acquittal of Razak Baginda as is the usual case with such prosecutions? The judge may have presumed that there was no case for Baginda to answer, but what does the AG say about the well put question “you mean two cops woke up one fine morning and decided to off a previously unknown to them Mongolian lady with C4 explosives, just like that?”
3. What was Razak Baginda’s experience and track record in defence and submarine procurement and maintenance that he should have been awarded a RM 570 million “co-ordination and support service fee”? Was it by open tender?
4. What were the scope of these “services” and when and how were the “services” performed and fulfilled?
5. Why was the payment of RM 570 million made IN FULL BEFORE the two Scorpene Submarines were delivered in recent years?
6. In the wake of massive evidence that DCNS has been involved in bribery and huge kickbacks in sham deals, why hasn’t our MACC and police advanced with swift investigations in Malaysia?
7. Why has the impression been given to Malaysian citizens that at the trial, the DPP AND the defence worked in concert to avoid any mention of any link between Altantuya and PM Najib? It’s just a perception, but it’s surely there!
8. What was Razak Baginda’s outburst and threat against ex-PM Abdullah Badawi all about?
9. Who normally has access to C4 explosives in Malaysia?
10. Have any investigations been undertaken to verify if immigration records were indeed erased, and if so, what is the outcome, please? If it is true, who ordered it and with what intention?
11. Who “advised” PI Bala into withdrawing his first SD at Brickfields Police Station?
12. What were the involvement of Musa Safri, who was never called as a witness in the trial, and Nasir Safar in the events leading to Altantuya being spirited away from outside Razak Baginda’s home?
13. A couple of blogs have published purported transcripts of handphone conversations between PM Najib and Razak Baginda's lawyer. Aren’t the police interested in investigating this matter?
I ask these questions not as a kind of cyber Taliban hell bent on tarnishing the good name of our Government and its leaders, but that the resolution of wicked, wanton premeditated murder cannot and must not be mired in continual perception of a MASSIVE COVER UP and that someone got away with bloody murder!
We are tired, no exhausted, by the breathtaking scale of fraud, thievery, embezzlement and looting for which accountability and equally important, prosecution and recovery seem to be nil. More cover ups seem to be in in progress with $12 billion free trade zone ponzi schemes and suspect awards of multi-billion dollar defence contracts for jet planes, helicopters, armoured-wheeled patrol tanks, offshore patrol boats and ships and the like as well other Government and GLC linked procurement involving buses, trains, aircrafts and contracts for construction of bridges, building and directly negotiated property development projects involving Government land.
We are puzzled by vague $10 billion property development projects and $36 billion MRT projects ballooning to a hastily revised $50 billion within a month being sold to us though we are talking about confetti and cornflakes. Broken and bust public listed companies linked to provision of “free lunch” services all sound like the same spindoctor driven bulldozing techniques of authoritarian regimes elsewhere. We are aghast at radiation spewing rare earth projects finding their way to our shores while rejected without a moment’s hesitation by the home country of its proponents, Australia!!
So, increasingly, instead of consulting and consensus we see pretence and spindoctoring. Thus "We are the market leader in Malaysia in Identity verification with over 170 organisation..." Wow, really? Why then has this Plc accumulated losses of nearly $17 million from mainly servicing Government departments and been placed on its de-listing roll call by the KLSE? Invested in R&D without first working out marketing strategies and projecting sales revenues on a reasonable basis first? Is this how Plc's in Malaysia normally work? More spin? In reality, unless the EPF and Government Departments are not strong-armed, they have no reason whatsoever to channel this monopolistic business to a financially and management-wise suspect outsourcing outfits or need to when their own IT Departments can provide the same service if needs be, maintain strict confidentiality and security, and still save oodles of internal overhead costs even more, do they? It sure as hell looks like, smells like and feels like a Government bailout, possibly with elements of nepotism and cronyism thrown in. Three other large shareholders in this Plc are CIMB through Commerce Tech Ventures Bhd (15.45%), Maybank through Mayban Venture Capital Company S/B (9.52%) and Heitech Padu S/B (5.86% of which 23.77% is owned by PNB). Of course, the Drivers will deny it. But why then was a Government Department involved in calling for and assessing tenders if it was "a wholly private sector initiative"?
So, yes PM Najib, shall we call for another Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to resolve once and for all the ALTANTUYA DEBACLE? Even here we have severe doubts. The findings and recommendations of two successive RCI’s in 2008/09, the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) and The Lingam Tapes Inquiry, have not been acted by Government under you, which surely places our King in an embarrassing position. The impression given is that they will NEVER be acted upon by your Government! So, how dare we hope the establishment will take the bull by the horns over Altantuya?
If parenthood is all about being proper role models to our children and leaving behind a sound and lasting legacy, then Governing a nation is about securing agreement for moving forward through consensus. Oh yes, LKY and Dr.Mahathir do not much believe in genuine consultation and consensus because they feel the mass of their people don't have the intelligence to deserve to be consulted and that, anyway, they are all Communists hell bent on destroying progress.
But most like me in Malaysia are not. We are not Communists, racists or religious bigots hell bent on destroying anything other than ignorance, racism, religious bigotry, forced social polarization and the development of a totalitarian state.
So, yes PM Najib, are you game for genuine reforms and justice or will it continue with one set of rules for others and another set for “ONE OF US"?
- http://donplaypuks.blogspot.com/
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