Najib: Indisputably Corrupt & Absolutely Complicit

From Asia Sentinel...

Gun Begins to Smoke in Malaysian Sub Purchase

Money may have been funneled to UMNO officials through Hong Kong incorporated company

French investigating magistrates probing the US$1.2 billion sale of submarines to the Malaysian Defense Ministry are targeting, among other things, a Hong Kong-based company called Terasasi (Hong Kong) Ltd., whose principal officers are Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s close friend and the friend’s father.

Investigators believe that at least some of the €36 million funneled through Terasasi ended up in the pockets of Najib, who was Malaysia’s defense minister and deputy prime minister when the two Scorpene submarines were purchased from Thales International or Thint Asia. The state-owned defense giant DCN, later known as DCNS, and Thales established a joint company named Armaris to manufacture the submarines in 2002.

Scorpene submarine

The two Armaris Scorpenes, named for the first prime minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and Najib’s father, Tun Abdul Razak, are on duty in Malaysian waters.

Abdul Razak Baginda, the former head of a Malaysian think tank who was at the center of a 2006 investigation into the death of Mongolian translator and party girl Altantuya Shaariibuu, is listed as one of the two directors of the company, which was previously incorporated on June 28, 2002 as Kinabalu Advisory and Support Services Ltd according to the Hong Kong Companies Registry. The other director is Abdul Malim Baginda, Baginda’s father.

The Terasasi offices are located on the 19th floor of an office at 3 Lockhart Road in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong. There is no indication in Hong Kong government records of what Terasasi’s business is. It is only listed as a “local company.” However, French authorities say Terasasi apparently received regular payments from Thint Asia. One payment was for €360,000 accompanied with a handwritten note saying “Razak wants it to be paid quickly.”

Najib

The magistrates have documents that show that the money was funneled from Thint Asia to Terasasi - €3 million of it when Terasasi was still domiciled in Malaysia, and €33 million after it was incorporated in Hong Kong. There is no indication at this point where the money went. French investigators, however, theorize that it was part of €146 million that may have been funneled to officials of the United Malays National Organization and Najib, who traveled with Abdul Razak Baginda several times to France as defense minister at the time the Malaysians purchased the submarines from DCNS.

On at least one trip, Altantuya, then Razak Baginda’s lover, accompanied him to France as a translator. He later jilted her, impelling her to come to Kuala Lumpur to demand US$500,000 from him. In a handwritten letter found after her death, she wrote that she was attempting to blackmail him, although she didn’t say why. Two of Najib’s bodyguards were convicted of shooting her in the head and blowing up her body with plastic explosives in September 2006, possibly to hide the fact that she was pregnant when she was killed.

[Read the whole sordid tale here.]

A Love Song for Altantuya...

Well, folks, fasten your seat belts. Some massive turbulence ahead... when the case filed in Paris by SUARAM (Suara Rakyat Malaysia, a leading human rights organization) to investigate the astronomical kickbacks involved in Malaysia's purchase of French-made Scorpene submarines between 2002 and 2005, reaches full trial in the coming weeks.

It was an inspired move on the part of SUARAM, because no serious investigation would have been possible in Malaysia, where the defence minister involved in these shady deals has now been promoted to prime minister. Everybody knows all law enforcement agencies in Malaysia are under the direct control of the executive - specifically the prime minister's department and the home ministry. The present home minister happens to be Najib Razak's boorish cousin, Hishammuddin Hussein.

The shadow of unavoidable suspicion still dogs Najib Razak's every step. None of this would have become front-page news had it not been for the gruesome murder of 28-year-old Mongolian beauty, Altantuya Shaariibuu, on 20 October 2006 - who was shot twice in the head and her body blown to smithereens with military-grade C4 explosives in a forested area known as Puncak Alam, near Kuala Lumpur.

Two police officers attached to the Unit Tindakan Khas (Special Action Unit) who, at the time of the murder, had served as personal bodyguards to Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, were charged with the macabre murder of the Mongolian woman and found guilty in April 2009 after a ponderous and farcical trial during which both the defence and prosecution took extraordinary pains to keep Najib Razak and his security chief Musa Safri from testifying.

Najib's close friend Abdul Razak Baginda, a special advisor to the defence ministry, was deeply involved in the submarine purchase. He was arrested in connection with the Altantuya murder and admitted in an affidavit that she had been his mistress for a couple of years and that she had served as a translator during the negotiations in Paris. Trial judge Zaki Yasin acquitted Abdul Razak Baginda, who swiftly relocated to the U.K. with his family.

The faces of the two policemen sentenced to death have never been revealed to the public, as the judge allowed them to cover their heads throughout the prolonged trial. Najib Razak swore on the Koran in August 2008 that he had never met "that Mongolian woman." He did not mention her by name.

However, on 3 July 2008, private investigator Balasubramaniam Perumal had issued an explosive statutory declaration: he had been engaged by Abdul Razak Baginda to keep Altantuya from bothering his client. Bala indicated in his signed declaration that Baginda had briefed him thoroughly on the situation. The background to the messy affair was that Altantuya Shaariibuu had been Najib Razak's mistress until 2004 when he became deputy prime minister, in addition to being defence minister. Najib, wishing to avoid scandal in his new high profile position, had coaxed his buddy Baginda to "look after" Altantuya.

A day later Bala Perumal appeared sullen and ashen-faced at a hastily convened media conference in a hotel at which an unknown lawyer claiming to represent Bala announced that his client had recanted his first statutory declaration and issued a new one wherein all references to Najib Razak had been surgically excised. Immediately afterwards, Bala Perumal vanished from sight and did not reappear until November 2009 when he recorded an interview with three veteran lawyers narrating his harrowing adventures following his 3 July statutory declaration.

According to Bala, he had been escorted by business associates of Rosmah Mansor (Najib's wife) to meet Nazim Razak, younger brother of Najib, who instructed him to accept a "special arrangement" if he valued the lives of his wife and children. Under this arrangement Bala was to leave Malaysia with his family and keep a low profile until after Najib Razak had been appointed the sixth prime minister. He and his family would be comfortably supported with a payment of RM5 million.

Corruption, sex, blackmail, abduction, murder, cover-ups, criminal intimidation, judicial interference, dirty deals... welcome to Bolehsia! Will Najib Razak and his moribund political party, UMNO, survive whatever fresh evidence surfaces during the upcoming corruption trial in Paris?

Well, if they do... it would mean the end of all decency, justice, freedom, truth and wise governance in Malaysia. We shall all turn into moral zombies and our beloved land will be renamed Mordoria....

Folks, a hearty round of applause to Dr Kua Kia Soong and his dedicated staff at SUARAM. They will require an injection of money to pay their legal representatives in France. I've already donated to SUARA INISIATIF SDN BHD's Hong Leong Bank account # 03000065200. Please do your bit to restore justice, accountability and human decency to this country. Thank you.