The unending haunt of Altantuya

Raja Petra Kamarudin’s interview by TV3 last night is undoubtedly a piece of political propaganda aimed at cleansing Prime Minister Najib Razak’s taint with the Altantuya murder case ahead of the Sarawak elections two days from now.

Raja Petra’s interview was centered on an affidavit he signed on June 18, 2008, in which he claimed he was reliably told by his informant that Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor was at the scene of the crime to witness the blasting of Altantuya Shariibuu’s body. But Raja Petra now claims that he no longer believes what he believed then.

Let us be very clear on this issue at the very outset. The veracity or otherwise of that affidavit as well as whatever belief or disbelief Raja Petra may have over the Altantuya case does not add to or subtract one bit from the dark clouds that persist in hanging over Najib with regard to this murder case.

Failure of institutions

Such negative perceptions of Najib do not arise from so-and-so says this or that. Rather, they have accumulated over Najib’s own failure to conduct himself appropriately as well as the effort by our law-enforcing institutions to keep Najib out of bounds from due legal process. The overtly protective shield provided Najib is to the point of dereliction of duty and borders on criminal collusion.

It is these flagrant institutional failures as well Najib’s own clumsily evasive conduct that has deepened public suspicion. These instances are too many to enumerate, but we will mention a few to refresh public memory.

Starting with the police, there is no reason whatsoever why the police should have left Najib and his aide-de-camp Musa Safri out of its loop of investigation, when all the three accused were closely linked to the prime minister.

Police failure was even more glaring when it failed to act on all three of private investigator P. Balasubramaniam’s affidavits and video interview by three senior lawyers.

The information provided by Bala in these documents not only incriminated Najib (in first affidavit) but also accused Rosmah and Najib’s brother Nazim of forcing Bala and his family to flee the country with bribes and threats (recorded in video interview and submitted via the third affidavit). The third affidavit was in reply to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) written questions, and submitted in July 2010. There has been no response from MACC, despite written reminders by Bala’s lawyer.

What possible reason is there for the police and MACC to remain silent over these serious accusations, backed by details, against the Prime Minister and his family? If Najib and family are innocent, wouldn’t these law enforcing bodies have sprung to action in the first instance to clear the PM and family of such a horrible stigma?

Bizarre irregularities

The scenario in the court is even more bizarre. Revealing and critical evidence exposed in court was quickly smothered, instead of being pursued in the cause of truth and justice. The extraordinary part is that the attempt to bury these new evidences was not engendered by one or two parties but by all the three parties acting in concert – prosecutor, defence and judge.

One piece of evidence is the missing immigration record of Altantuya, and its erasure which hints at providing a lead to some high-powered involvement in the case. The other piece of evidence is an alleged photograph of Najib, Altantuya and the third accused having a meal in a restaurant, which if tendered, would have nailed Najib who repeatedly swore that he had never known nor met Altantuya.

This grotesque phenomenon of confluence of interest of all the judicial players in not pursuing the evidence can have only one explanation – Najib must be kept out of this case.

That justice might not have been fully served through the sentencing of the first two accused to death should be obvious, when the court never bothered to probe into the motive of executing the girl – and in such cruel fashion. It is not difficult to fathom why motive of murder was never mentioned in court. The simple answer is: there is none.

The two convicted killers, who were bodyguards to Najib, and trained to execute orders rigidly without question, had no motive on their own to kill someone they had never met. And since the third accused, who was accused of instigating the killing, was set free due to lack of evidence, then the remaining question must be: Who ordered the killing? Is it conceivable that the bodyguards had killed without order and without motive? Isn’t it logical to deduce that the mastermind and real culprit may still be lurching somewhere beyond the realm of the court?

It is clear that major questions and swirling doubts over the handling of the case are still unresolved. Until these are satisfactorily answered through a just court and an honourable police force, which can only be brought into existence through a complete change of political leadership, it is naïve to hope for the return of justice to the Altantuya family and the nation.

And until such time, Premier Najib Razak cannot expect to be free from the haunt of Altantuya’s murder.

-cpiasia