Up Periscope: Malaysia’s Submarine Scandal Resurfaces

February 13, 2019

February 11, 2019

By: John Berthelsen

https://www.asiasentinel.com/politics/up-periscope-malaysia-sub-scandal-resurfaces/

What, until the US$4.5 billion 1MDB affair, had been Malaysia’s biggest scandal, has reappeared – the US$1.2 billion purchase of submarines under then-Defense Minister Najib Razak at the turn of the century, a lurid tangle of blackmail, bribery, murder, influence peddling, misuse of corporate assets and concealment.

Crusading French lawyer William Bourdon and his associate, Appoline Cagnat, are currently in Malaysia discussing the affair with Attorney General Tommy Thomas, according to local media. Bourdon and his associates compiled much of the evidence about the purchase at the turn of the decade for Suaram, the Malaysian good-government NGO, but he was kicked out of the country for attempting to follow up the case by Najib’s government.

Credit: Malaysiakini

The matter has remained in limbo since 2012 as the Najib government pulled out all the stops to keep it buried. Now, however, after the May 9, 2018 election that turned out the Barisan Nasional and brought the Pakatan Harapan coalition to power, the new government has shown considerable zeal in bringing long-buried scandals to the light.

The Scorpene submarines were purchased by Malaysia from subsidiaries of the state-owned weapons manufacturer DCN although there is no evidence that Malaysia ever needed submarines and in fact they had to be based in East Malaysia because the waters around Peninsular Malaysia were too shallow for them to operate efficiently.

According to evidence compiled by Asia Sentinel in a long series of articles that won the 2013 Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting from the Society of Publishers in Asia – Asia’s version of the Pulitzer Prize – the transaction steered a €114.96 million (US$130.3 million at current exchange rates) kickback to the United Malays National Organization through a private company called Perimekar Sdn Bhd.

Perimekar was wholly owned by Abdul Razak Baginda and its principal shareholder was his wife, Mazlinda, a close friend of Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor.  He was then the head of a Malaysian think tank called Malaysian Strategic Research.

DCN officials hinted that Perimekar had come into existence only to facilitate the kickback transaction. Documents note that “Perimekar was a limited liability company with a capital of MR5 million (€1.4 million) of which 1 million is available. It was created in August 1999 … it has no record of sales during 2000. Its ownership is in the process of restructuring.”

Razak Baginda was a close friend of Najib Razak, who went on to be Malaysia’s prime minister and would be booted out of office in disgrace over the 1MDB scandal, which later supplanted the Scorpene scandal by far.

Another €36 million was directed to an obscure company in Hong Kong named Terasasi Hong Kong Ltd., whose principal officers were listed as Razak Baginda and his father and which appeared to be nothing more than a name on an accounting firm’s wall. According to an August, 2017 story, Razak Baginda was charged by French prosecutors with “active and passive complicity in corruption.”

According to the documents made available to Asia Sentinel, some of the misdeeds appear to have taken place with the knowledge of top French government officials including then-foreign Minister Alain Juppe and with the consent of former – and current — Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Top Thales officials been named in news stories in Paris as having suborned bribes in the matter. Najib was also named as the recipient.   However, given the involvement of such individuals as Juppe and others, it seems unlikely that the matter will be carried further in France despite a statement last July by French Ambassador to Malaysia Frédéric Laplanche that “Cooperation between France and Malaysia (on the investigation) is very good.”

As Asia Sentinel reported in 2012, the payment appears to have been in violation of the OECD Convention on Bribery, which France ratified on June 30, 2000. On Sep. 29, 2000, DCNI, a DCN subsidiary, “took corrective actions” after France joined the bribery convention. Contracts concluded after that date were to be routed to companies held by Jean-Marie Boivin, DCN’s former finance chief, headquartered in Luxembourg and Malta respectively.

Among the documents is one that shows Boivin paid to send Razak Baginda on a jaunt to Macau with his then-girlfriend, Altantuya Shaariibuu, a jet-setting Mongolian national who was later murdered by two of Najib’s bodyguards in gruesome fashion in October of 2006 and whose body was blown up with C4 explosives, possibly to destroy the fetus of the child she said she was carrying when she was killed.

In a handwritten note found in her hotel room after she had been murdered, Altantuya said she was blackmailing Razak Baginda for US$50,000, although she didn’t say why. However, according to the documents, she had considerable knowledge of the purchase of the submarines from her relationship with the defense analyst. And, although Najib has repeatedly denied it and sworn on the Quran that he had never met her, there is evidence that he had not only met her but had an affair with her before Razak Baginda.

Two of Najib’s bodyguards, Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar, the latter of whom left the country when he was temporarily freed by an appeals court and remains in Australia, were tried and convicted of her murder in a long-running trial that appeared to be carefully orchestrated to make sure nobody above the two bodyguards was ever named despite the fact that one of them, in a sworn statement, said they were to be paid MYR50,000 to carry out the killing. Musa Safri, Najib’s aide de camp, was identified as the individual who designated Azilah and Sirul to pick up Altantuya. But there is no evidence he was ever questioned by the police about his involvement.

In June 2018, the then-newly appointed Inspector-General of Police Mohamad Fuzi Harun told reporters that an investigation into Altantuya’s death would be reopened, based on a new police report submitted by Altantuya’s father. So far there has been little public indication of progress.

 

The story, which was considerably bigger than just the Scorpenes, in essence began when Najib was appointed Defense Minister in Mahathir’s cabinet in 1991 and embarked on a massive buildup of the country’s military, arranging for the purchase of tanks, Sukhoi jets, coastal patrol boats – and submarines, all of which appear to have been mired in corruption and kickbacks that enriched Najib and UMNO. French, German, Swedish, Russian and Dutch manufacturers in turn went looking for the most effective cronies of the Malaysian leadership to help them out.

“The major defense contracts in Malaysia as in other countries require substantial money transfers to individuals and/or [political] organizations,” according to documents taken from DCN’s files by French investigators. “In Malaysia, other than individuals, the ruling party [UMNO] is the largest beneficiary. Consultants [agents or companies] are often used as a political network to facilitate such transfers and receive commissions for their principals.”

Najib, still the man?

January 25, 2019

//www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2019/01/25/najib-still-the-man/

 

Najib Razak is certainly a man on a mission (decommission). He seems intent on trying to revive his standing by convincing his base that he was unfairly demonised by Pakatan Harapan (PH) and unjustly tarnished by the 1MDB scandal. His efforts appear to be showing some results; he was mobbed by villagers in Sg. Koyan and elsewhere in Cameron Highlands recently when he campaigned there on behalf of Barisan Nasional (BN).

And it was not just Cameron Highlands. In the last few months, despite multiple corruption charges hanging over his balding head, he has been more visible and more vocal than many PH leaders, dishing out advice, skilfully exploiting local grievances and hammering away at PH’s perceived failures. He even managed to steal the show at the Thaipusam celebrations at Batu Caves.

He’s also proving adept at taking credit for everything good and blaming PH for everything bad, never mind that PH is struggling to clean up the colossal mess he himself left behind. But memories are short and the more gullible are already pining for “the good old days” under Najib.

In Cameron Highlands, he even had the audacity to tell voters, “Don’t allow them [PH] to cheat us… don’t trust them… how long do we want them to continue cheating us?” And this from the man who stands accused of cheating the people of Malaysia of billions of ringgits!

Down but not out

Clearly, Najib may be down but he is not yet.

If he succeeds in convincing the Malay-Muslim electorate, in particular, that he is but a victim of a political vendetta or worse still, a non-Malay conspiracy (something that unfortunately all too many will be quick to believe), his influence will only grow.

After all, nothing can be ruled out in politics; if Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim can rise again from the ashes, so can he.

Unlike other UMNO leaders who remain largely clueless, Najib understands that the UMNO brand and its formula of racial and religious exclusiveness still retains its appeal among many Malay-Muslim voters and can be weaponised against PH. He knows too that his only chance of avoiding serious jail time lies in UMNO regaining power.

The feudal mindset of many voters also works in Najib’s favour. They are often willing to overlook serious, even criminal shortcomings in a leader so long as he is perceived to have defended Malay rights. They remain eternally grateful to a leader for building a mosque here or a road there, or for giving them a pittance in handouts while he helps himself to millions from the public purse.

Court of public opinion

PH has focused on bringing Najib to justice via the courts for his alleged criminal misconduct. To that end, the government has painstakingly built what looks to be a strong legal case against him with multiple charges now pending in court.

Of course, it is absolutely necessary to bring Najib to justice for whatever crimes he may have committed. However, the legal process is often a slow and cumbersome one and the outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion.

Nevertheless, the case against Najib is more than a legal one; it is a political one and must be fought and won in the court of public opinion as well.

PH must rise to the challenge

If PH ever hopes to win the support of Malay-Muslims, it must persuade them that they will be better off in every respect under a clean and responsible government led by PH than a corrupt one led by UMNO.

The full extent of the corruption and the abuse of power of the Najib administration and how it has hurt the Malays themselves must be emphasised. Just look at the substandard housing of FELDA settlers in the Cameron Highlands constituency and the hardship they still face; if corruption hadn’t robbed the nation of billions, their lives would undoubtedly be far different today.

Of necessity, this is a political campaign that can only be fought and won by PH’s Malay leadership. They must be more proactive in carrying the fight to the Malay heartland where support for UMNO and Najib remain strong. And not just during by-elections. Until PH has firmly established itself in the Malay heartland, it needs to be in continuous election mode.

PH’s Malay leadership must also take on Najib more directly. Najib is, after all, challenging their legitimacy to represent the Malays and they must confront him. It wouldn’t have escaped notice that it is Messrs Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng who are constantly attacking or refuting Najib while PH’s Malay leadership remains largely silent, even deferential at times. This has allowed Najib to argue that only DAP seems “obsessed” with attacking him, that this is somehow racially motivated.

The battle against Najib (and UMNO) for the allegiance of Malay-Muslim voters is PH’s biggest and most important challenge; if they don’t rise to it sooner than later, they might well be forfeiting the future of Malaysia Baru.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

Jho Low And The China Issue

July 19, 2018

by Sarawak Report

http://www.sarawakreport.org/2018/07/jho-low-and-the-china-issue/

They seek him here and they seek him there, but best bets are back on China.  Indeed, earlier today, a Hong Kong radio station reported that Jho Low had most recently fled back from Hong Kong into China, where it claimed he has now been detained pending Dr Mahathir’s visit next month.

Certainly, Malaysia’s newly reinstated veteran leader has made clear he is champing at the bit to get to see the Chinese President, since there are plenty of highly pertinent issues he wishes to discuss, albeit embarrassing to China.

 

Xi Met Mahathir during his visit in 2013,

 

These, of course, relate to a series of multi-billion dollar mega-projects that Chinese state controlled companies signed up to with the previous premier, Najib Razak, star patron of the man on the run, Jho Low.

All of them have been frozen by the new government, which has been issuing toe-curling statements confirming everyone’s suspicions that the contracts were prime examples of super-corruption, which the Chinese had been prepared to pander to in return for digging its economic tentacles into Malaysia and cementing a strategic control over the region.

They include two pipe-line deals in East Malaysia with the China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPPB), which the Finance Ministry recently disclosed had already received 88% of the agreed payment two years early and when only 13% of the work had been completed.

The Finance Minister and his team have not minced their words when indicating their firm suspicion that the reason for this outrageous outlay was that the project were being used as a front to channel money to repay billions of dollars of debts owed by Najib’s notorious multi-billion dollar slush fund 1MDB.

Likewise, the grossly inflated East Coast Railway, contracted by Najib to China’s unfortunately named China Communications Construction Corporation – or CCCC (C4 was the explosive used to murder a young woman in a particularly murky case linked to Najib and the has become synonymous with cover-up and corruption in Malaysia).

It was Sarawak Report which exclusively revealed leaked documents back in 2016 that showed how this C4 contract also was inflated by 100% at the last moment, following negotiations with Najib to again write of debts and liabilities connected to 1MDB and Jho Low.  The exact repayment details over the next decade were written into a secret annex to the contract, which on the surface had provided merely broad brush calculations to justify the increased expenditure.

Throughout the period when these contracts were being drawn up the already fugitive Jho Low was based in Shanghai, and it is generally agreed that he was acting as Najib’s agent to use the Chinese to get the prime minister off the hook financially and politically after the United States Department of Justice published the exact details of the 1MDB theft in July 2016.

In other words, to save his own skin Najib proved willing to tie up his country in a mountain of debt and obligation to its neighbouring predatory super-power.

Numerous other Chinese funded projects were likewise put underway, in particular the evironmentally catastrophic Forest City, deemed to provide a helpful financial boon to the Sultan of Johore.  Not only was the development a perfect conduit for Chinese wishing to export cash, the project envisaged providing citizenship to a million new immigrants.

READ ON:  https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2018/05/375032/embracing-common-future

Mahathir and his reformist allies in the new Harapan government are naturally furious at all these thefts and deceptions and are demanding a re-negotiation with China, should these projects go ahead at all.  However, the entire episode represents a humiliating debacle for China, which like the rest of the world had mistakenly placed its bets on the politial survival of the unmasked kleptocrat Najib.

President Xi Jinping will hardly relish the prospect of the extent of his country’s bad behaviour and complicity in corruption being paraded on the world stage and it makes Malaysia’s top wanted man into a useful bargaining chip to help save face in the up-coming diplomatic wranglings and renegotiations.

The Long Arm of the Law will get at him shoot.

It remains to be seen if China will hang on to Malaysia’s wanted man, who can tell all over Najib’s kleptocratic dealings (and China’s own involvement) or bargain a deal that includes the renegotiation of key projects in Malaysia’s favour, in return for a polite silence over the more embarrassing aspects of China’s corrupt part in propping up Najib?

Malaysia has its strong advocate in the trenchant Mahathir, but it appears China has a valuable hostage in its hands.

Altantuya Shaariibuu Murder: In the name of Justice, Najib Razak must be made to answer

June 19, 2018

by Minderjeet Kaur@www.freemalaysiatoday.com

Shaaribuu Setev will be meeting AG Tommy Thomas later today, and PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad tomorrow to discuss the possibility of reopening investigations into his daughter’s murder.

Shaaribuu Setev, the father of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu who was murdered in 2006. 

KUALA LUMPUR: The father of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, who is seeking to reopen investigations into her murder, today asked why his daughter had not been deported to her home country.

“Why didn’t they just handcuff her and send her back? Why kill her? “I want justice for my daughter,” Shaaribuu Setev said in a press conference here.

Shaaribuu will be meeting Attorney-General Tommy Thomas at 3pm to discuss the possibility of reopening the probe into her murder.

His lawyer Ramkarpal Singh, who was also at the press conference, said his client would meet with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad at 5pm tomorrow.

Altantuya, 28, was killed between October 19 and 20, 2006 by Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar who were part of an elite police commando unit that provided bodyguards for Malaysia’s top leaders.

She was shot twice in the head before being wrapped in military-grade C-4 explosives and blown to pieces. The motive for the crime as well as the source of the order for her death remains unknown.

Azilah and Sirul were convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. However, Sirul fled to Australia before the final court verdict and has been in detention in Sydney for nearly two years.

Altantuya’s murder also attracted attention due to the involvement of Abdul Razak Baginda, who was once an aide to former Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Razak was charged alongside Sirul and Azilah, but he was acquitted without his defence being called. He had also confessed to having an affair with Altantuya.

The case has been linked to Malaysia’s purchase of two French submarines, a deal which is still under investigation in France for alleged kickbacks involving a company linked to Razak Baginda.

Last month, Shaariibuu pleaded with the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to reopen investigations to uncover the identity of the person who ordered Altantuya’s murder.

In a letter to Ramkarpal, he said “a powerful person” must have sanctioned the crime.

Following PH’s electoral victory on May 9, Sirul said he was prepared to return to Malaysia and expose those he said were behind the murder. However, in an interview with The Guardian, he rejected Ramkarpal’s suggestion that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.

He also claimed that he was a scapegoat “in an elaborate political crime” and denied he had ever confessed to killing Altantuya.

Malaysia: Murder Case Cover-Up

June 5, 2018

Murder Cover-Up Case: Najib, Rosmah and Lawyers Cecil Abraham & Shafee Abdullah in a legal Fix

by Sarawak Report

Cecil Abraham and Partners enable clients to realise solutions through clarity of thought and advice. We deliver smart and efficient dispute resolution solutions.

The significance of a court ruling in KL today (June 4, 2018) was perhaps muted by the extraordinary excitement of these moving times.  However, that ruling has opened the floodgates against a cover-up exercise that has strained the Najib administration for over a decade.

Sarawak Report has been covering the dogged litigation of widow Selvi Bala and her former lawyer Americk Sidhu (now himself a witness in the case) against 9 defendants, whom she holds responsible for blackmailing her husband PI (private investigator) Bala after he tried to speak out as a witness over the murder of the Mogolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Bala, like others, had considered the trial a travesty designed to protect ‘high level’ individuals caught up in Altantuya’s threats to expose both her knowledge about kickbacks on a French submarine deal with the former Defence Minister and later PM, Najib Razak, and also her alleged affairs with Najib and his proxy ‘defence consultant’ Razak Baginda.

The private investigator had issued a statutory declaration to the effect that both Baginda and Altantuya had told him that Najib had been her lover and that he was certain that Najib’s two bodyguards, who were found guilty of shooting then blowing up Altantuya’s body, would not have done so without orders.

Cover-Up

Today’s court hearing went to the heart of the cover-up that allegedly followed Bala’s declaration back in 2008, which Najib and his lawyers had managed to keep the matter out of court by one method or another right up until the last election.

Selvi’s case was that 9 defendants had conspired to force her husband Bala to change his declaration, in order to leave out Najib’s name.  These defendants were primarily Najib and his wife Rosmah, two of Najib’s brothers, a business partner of Rosmah, Deepak Jaikashan, (whom she used as fixer for the occasion) and some lawyers, primarily Cecil Abraham and his son Sunil, who were close to Najib.

Together, Selvi claimed, they had threatened, blackmailed and bribed Bala to flee the country with his family, after a night during which he was forced to sign a new declaration drawn up by Cecil Abraham and son Sunil. In 2013 Bala returned and retracted that second declaration, shortly before dying of a heart attack.

During the course of Selvi’s case for compensation, owing to the impact on her family, all of these defendants successfully pressured the courts to strike out the case against them (on highly controversial grounds accepted by Najib’s Chief Justice Raus) except for Deepak, who had since 2012 made clear he was prepared to back up Bala’s story.

This meant that Selvi’s litigation was continuing throughout last year, but against Deepak only.

Deepak’s Exposure 

Thus by 2017 Deepak alone was defending Selvi’s demands for compensation, keeping the case hanging on by a thread.  Nevertheless, the world could see that if Selvi gained a ruling in her favour by the court against this last defendant, then that judgement would confirm the complicity of all the others, including Najib and Rosmah, in the shocking cover-up of evidence in a murder trial that pointed heavily towards their additional complicity either in that killing or, at the very least, in the failure to prosecute those responsible for ordering the death of a woman who was blackmailing Najib and his proxy.

As Sarawak Report exclusively reported at the time, Deepak had no desire to plead other than guilty for his part, since he plainly wished for the greater guilt of those who had engaged him to fix the cover-up to be exposed.

We published an exclusive copy of the original defence drawn up by Deepak’s lawyers, which acknowledged all of Selvi’s allegations and named Najib and Rosmah as the “masterminds and beneficiaries” of the conspiracy to cover-up PI Bala’s evidence.

 

However, moments from putting that document into court last November, Najib’s agents intevened in the form of another lawyer, Shafee Abdullah (pic above), who together with the Tabung Haji Chairman, Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, liased between Deepak and the Prime Minister to force a change of story.

As Deepak has informed Sarawak Report, Najib was abusing his powers as PM-Finance Minister to hold huge tax bills over Deepak’s head, which he offered to drop if Deepak cooperated.  Ironically, those bills were linked to land deals that Deepak had conducted on behalf of Najib’s own wife Rosmah, for whom he was acting as a proxy, says the businessman.

To get off millions in tax demands, Deepak agreed to play ball and allow Shafee to place a new defence that denied all Selvi’s allegations.  However, right up to the election Deepak and his ‘new lawyer’ Shafee wrangled with each other and the court, finding excuses to avoid a hearing where Deepak could be cross examined about his change of tune.

What a Difference an Election Makes

When the case returned to court after the election what a different story Deepak had to tell.  In an exclusive interview with Sarawak Report last month the businessman had already confided that the endless hospital appointments, designed to keep him out of the witness box to avoid embarrassment before polling day, were of course a sham.

 

Dato’ Panglima Azeez Abdul Rahim–The Fixer

Azeez, says Deepak, had organised a doctor to provide a certificate and place him overnight in hospital, a matter he conspired over with Shafee. Deepak has played recordings to Sarawak Report of those conversations between himself, lawyer Shafee and the agent of Najib, Azeez, where the fake hospital appointments were arranged.

Today, again before the judge, Deepak admitted that his first and not the second defence devised by Shafee was the honest statement he plans to stand by.  He also made clear he had never formally appointed Shafee, who had represented him only through blackmail.

Both these points were accepted by the judge, leaving Deepak to face cross-examination on the case at the next hearings, as well as Shafee himself and the other witnesses named in the case.

Face The Music

The consequences for lawyer Shafee, now accused of faking hospital appointments and blackmailing a reluctant client on behalf of a separate interest, namely Najib and Rosmah, the prospect of the later stages of this civil trial are dismal.  Not least, because Shafee is likely to be also asked about a combined payment by Najib of RM9 million out of 1MDB money, for services not yet explained.

And what about two other Najib associated lawyers in the case?  Selvi’s petition stated that on the night her husband was blackmailed into changing his statutory declaration, in order to remove all reference to Najib, the prominent lawyer Cecil Abraham and his son Sunil joined Bala and Deepak overnight in a hotel room at the Hilton Sentral hotel in KL, in order to draw up that spurious new document.

Deepak, in his first and now revived defence, admitted this claim to be true and confirmed the role of the two lawyers, who had been called into the matter by Najib together with two of his brothers, who helped handle the situation that night. Americk Sidhu is expected to put in a complaint to the Bar Association shortly regarding this disturbing conduct.

Given the extensive and unhealthy ties between Najib and these lawyers, the present reported role of the father and son as key advisors to the Agong, currently resisting the appointment of the new Prime Minister’s choice of Attorney General is disturbing.  Are they representing the interests of the present administration or the old PM?

Most at risk from the developments in this marathon case, launched by a single widow to avenge her dead husband and compensate her family, are the former PM himself and his wife, described by the defendant himself as ‘masterminds and beneficiaries’ of the ‘conspiracy’ to silence Bala.

For ten years this couple have moved heaven and high water to hold this case at bay, now they no longer have the power to do so and the reason for their apparent attempts to obstruct the course of justice seem set to become fully known to all.

P.S. Tommy Thomas is now the new Attorney-General of Malaysia. All attempts to scuttle his nomination by Prime Minister and his Pakatan Harapan partners have failed.–Din Merican

The Model who knew too much to live

May 25, 2018

by John Berthelsen@www.asiasentinel.com

Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Mongolian jet-setting beauty who was murdered in a patch of forest near Kuala Lumpur on October 18, 2006, was killed because she was causing trouble and she knew too much.  It appears likely that the mystery of her death, 12 years later, may now be finally be unraveling.

The Model who knew to much

Asia Sentinel carried 73 stories on the events surrounding her death between 2006 and 2015, with several more in the intervening three years. We may now be about to learn what happened.

The 28-year-old translator was shot in the head by elite bodyguards for Prime Minister Najib Razak as she begged for her life and that of what she said was her unborn child after a whirlwind romance with Abdul Razak Baginda, then Najib’s best friend and, according to French prosecutors, a participant with him in a giant scandal. Razak Baginda had jilted her and she was demanding US$500,000 in front of Razak Baginda’s house when she was scooped up and thrown into a jeep by Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, never to be seen alive again. Her body was wrapped in C4 explosives and blown to bits, possibly to destroy the DNA of the fetus she was carrying. All that was left, when she was found, were bones that filled two urns.

A month after Altantuya was killed, on November 9, 2006 Sirul sat down with recording officer Nom Phot, was read his rights, agreed that he was not speaking under duress, and confessed to the murder, saying Azilah had told him the two would be paid between RM50,000 and RM100,000 to kill the woman.

Dr. Setev Shaariibuu–The brutally murdered model’s father

That confession, despite the fact that everything appeared to be in order, was never introduced in a court of law. It was printed verbatim in Asia Sentinel on March 20, 2009.  Three years after the murder, a Kuala Lumpur court convicted the two of murder without ever seeking to learn who would pay them the money.

That question has never been answered, but now it may be. Sirul has been in an Australian detention center since 2015, having fled Malaysia while he was temporarily freed on appeal. The conviction was later reinstated in Malaysia and Australian authorities detained him.

According to the Malaysian news portal Malaysiakini, Sirul now wants to return home and tell the full story of how Altantuya was killed in exchange for a pardon. Since he was detained, Sirul, a convicted murderer, has had the advice and assistance of two lawyers from the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the leading party in the Barisan Nasional, the party headed by Najib Razak, which decisively lost the May 9 general election.  With UMNO now having been ousted from power, Sirul’s lawyers apparently have disappeared.

Mohamad Fuzi Harun, Malaysia’s new top Police Officer, said he would discuss reopening the investigation into the murder.

So what did Altantuya know that made her so troublesome?  She accompanied Razak Baginda, and almost certainly Najib as well on a jaunt to Paris to meet with officials of DCNS, the French munitions giant, in the final stages of the purchase of two Scorpene submarines from a DCN subsidiary, Thales. Altantuya was identified as a “translator” on the trip, according to documents obtained by Asia Sentinel in 2012.  Najib has sworn on the Quran that he never met her although there are credible reports that he had.

 Dr. Abdul Razak Baginda

Among other things, according the documents, a DCNS agent, Jean-Marie Boivin, paid for a jaunt to Macau for Razak Baginda and Altantuya. Altantuya was identified as the translator on the transaction. Other news sources say the two lovers toured Europe in Razak Baginda’s Ferrari before he ultimately jilted her.

According to a series of stories that won Asia Sentinel the 2013 award for excellence in investigative journalism from the Society of Publishers in Asia – Asia’s version of the Pulitzer Prize – UMNO was paid kickbacks in the equivalent of US$141.3 million at then-prevailing exchange rates for the purchase of the submarines. Ironically, the submarines can’t operate in Peninsular Malaysian waters. They were stationed in East Malaysia, where they were virtually useless.

However, as Asia Sentinel reported, the kickbacks were paid with the knowledge of French government officials all the way up to then-Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and with the knowledge of then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and other Malaysian officials.

Given her intimacy with Razak Baganda – and possibly with Najib himself, according to a now-dead Malaysian private detective Perumal Balasubramaniam – it is likely that she knew considerable about how the US$141 million ended up with UMNO. According to a sworn declaration by Balasubramaniam, she had spent time with both Razak Baginda and Najib as her lover as well, and she had been promised the US$500,000 as a “commission” for assisting in the submarine transaction.

Today, French authorities have issued a warrant for Abdul Razak Baginda on bribery charges in the purchase of the submarines.  Two Thales officials have also been charged specifically with bribing Najib Razak.

From the start, it has been inconceivable that two elite policemen who had never known of Altantuya’s existence until the day she was murdered would decide out of the blue to kill her.

The stakes – a woman scorned and pregnant, standing on the street demanding that Razak Baginda show himself  or willing to tell what she knew – were high. By her own admission, in a letter found in the hotel room where she was staying, she said she was blackmailing Razak Baginda.

Razak Baginda, after her death, seemed to express horror that she had actually been murdered.  In public statements, he said he had only asked that someone “do something” about her to keep her from harassing him. In a highly unusual move, a high court judge turned him loose without ever having to put on a defense, whereupon he fled for the UK for several years.

It was Najib’s aide de camp, Musa Safri, who ordered Sirul and Azilah to pick up the woman, according to additional reports. Musa was never questioned, nor did he testify in the trial.  The question is who told Musa to order the two police commandos into action. If Inspector General of Police Fuzi decides to reopen the case, if Sirul makes his way back to Malaysia, We may now find out.