Let’s go the whole nine yards

 

Almost two years later, in April 2011, TV3 aired an interview they did with me. What I said in my TV3 interview was basically a repeat of my YouTube video (below). This time it finally got the attention I wanted (which was why I did that TV3 interview in the first place). A few weeks later, the Malaysian police met up with me in Bangkok, Thailand, and took my statement, which I signed. You can read my statement to the police below.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Jaringan Melayu Malaysia (JMM) lodged a report at the Hulu Kelang police station on Saturday, 25th August 2012. JMM president Azwanddin Hamzah said the police were urged to investigate the revelation by blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin which alleged that M Puravalen, Abdul Razak Baginda's former lawyer; Subang member of parliament, R Sivarasa; and private investigator P Balasubramaniam were involved in a conspiracy to defame the prime minister and threaten national security.

(READ MORE HERE: http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/newscommentaries/51244-jmm-lodges-report-over-malaysia-today-post)

********************************************

Dear Azwan, how are you? And how is your brother, Din? Is he still with Finas? Please send my salam to Din. It’s been a long time since we last met and I thought I would write this open letter in response to the police report you made recently on 25th August 2012.

You are probably aware of my June 2008 Statutory Declaration and the host of problems I got into for signing it. What you are probably not aware about, though, is that when I was brought to court and the three charges of criminal defamation were read out to me, I told the judge that I was not going to respond to the charges on grounds that the charges are defective and mala fide.

The judge, in fact the whole court, was stunned and did not know how to respond. The judge then said he would take that as a ‘not guilty’ plea. I then raised my voice and told the judge that I did not enter a plea of ‘not guilty’. What I said was I was not going to respond to the charges on grounds that the charges are defective and mala fide. The judge did not dare look up or look me in the face and he insisted that that would tantamount to a ‘not guilty’ plea.

The Prosecutor then asked the court to set bail at RM10,000 for each charge, which means totalling RM30,000. My lawyer then stood up and asked the court to reduced the bail to RM5,000. I shouted at the judge and told him that I did not authorise my lawyers to negotiate a reduction in bail, hence I am sacking my lawyers and will represent myself. I then told the judge I refuse to pay any bail even if it is a mere RM1.00.

The judge did not know what to do so he called for a short recess and asked the Prosecutors and my lawyers to meet in chambers. They then discussed what to do. The judge wanted to know whether my lawyers could convince me to accept bail. The Prosecutor told the judge that I am very stubborn so I would probably not back down.

After a few minutes the court resumed and the judge fixed the bail at RM3,000 for all three charges. Everyone in court was surprised. The Prosecutor had asked for RM10,000 while my lawyers had asked for RM5,000. The judge, however, on his own initiative, reduced it to RM3,000 for all three charges, something that the court had never experienced before.

When the judge announced the bail I walked out of the dock and headed for the court lockup. The police officer just stood there and did not know what to do. I then turned and shouted at the police officer to follow me. He tried to persuade me to stay in court but I shouted at him to just follow me to the lockup and to do his job.

The police officer, however, refused to put me in the lockup. He told my lawyer and my wife to talk to me and to try to persuade me to accept bail. After a bit of drama and with my wife reduced to tears, I agreed to accept bail and went home.

Not long after that I left the country and eventually the charges against me were dropped, as was the earlier charge of sedition. However, my SD was never investigated.

About six month later, in August 2009, I did a video, which was published in YouTube (see below). In that video I related the story regarding my SD. Still nothing was done in spite of the fact that almost 150,000 people have viewed the video.

Almost two years later, in April 2011, TV3 aired an interview they did with me. What I said in my TV3 interview was basically a repeat of my YouTube video (below). This time it finally got the attention I wanted (which was why I did that TV3 interview in the first place). A few weeks later, the Malaysian police met up with me in Bangkok, Thailand, and took my statement, which I signed. You can read my statement to the police below.

Again, what I said in my signed statement to the Malaysian police is exactly the same as what I said in my YouTube video of August 2009 and my TV3 interview of April 2011. The only difference is my statement was officially recorded and signed.

Hence, Azwan, seeing how concerned you are about the investigation regarding Altantuya’s murder, you may want to go the whole nine yards (an English idiom such as ‘better the devil you know’) and also take up this issue and ask the Malaysian police what has happened to the recorded and signed statement they took from me in May 2011. 

My salam aidil fitri to you and your entire family.

********************************************

RPK Speaks His Mind - Altantuya Statutory Declaration

SEE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yE5vv73DA

********************************************

My recorded and signed statement to the Malaysian police regarding the 18th June 2008 Statutory Declaration (SD) that I signed

In early June 2008, an old schoolmate of mine named Nik Azmi Nik Daud (Bul) phoned me and requested to meet. He did not tell me what the meeting was about. I not only knew Bul from my Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) school days of the 1960s but also know him as Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s (Ku Li) campaign manager. Whenever Ku Li needs to reach me or he needs to pass me any information it is done though Bul.

We met at La Bodega in Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, for tea (about 3.00-4.00pm). I can’t remember the exact date (maybe around the second week of June 2008 between the 3rd-5th), but it was about two weeks or so before I signed the SD and it was a working day, mid-week.

My wife, Marina Lee, accompanied me to the meeting and there was another person with Bul. I was not introduced to this fourth person and since Bul did not introduce us I took it I was not supposed to know who he is, so I did not ask. This fourth person did not speak a word throughout the meeting so I could not ascertain whether he was Malay or Chinese although he looked more Chinese than Malay (but then many Malays look Chinese so I could not be sure). As the discussion progressed I began to suspect that he may be from the military or military intelligence (he had that ‘regimented’ look) but this was only my suspicion based on the subject matter that we discussed.

Bul related the story regarding the number two in the Special Branch of the Military Intelligence, Lt. Kol. Azmi Zainal Abidin, meeting Ku Li to inform Ku Li about the night that Altantuya Shaariibuu was murdered. Bul said that Lt. Kol. Azmi told Ku Li that the Deputy Prime Minister’s wife, Rosmah Mansor; and Rosmah’s ADC, Lt. Kol. Norhayati Hassan; and Lt. Kol. Norhayati’s husband, Lt. Kol. Aziz Buyong; were all present (all three of them) at the scene of Altantuya’s murder the night she was murdered and blown up with C4 explosives.

Bul said he was present in the meeting when Lt. Kol. Azmi told Ku Li about this episode. He also told me that Ku Li would like this matter to be exposed, hence the purpose of the meeting that day.

After the meeting with Bul, Marina and I discussed the matter and she did not agree that I pursue this expose because she considered the story as farfetched, plus also because Bul was not reliable and in the past some of his stories have proven to be false. Hence, at the behest of Marina, I did nothing about the matter.

About ten days or so later, Bul again phoned me to ask me whether I was going to follow up on the matter we discussed. I told him I was not going to and he requested to meet again. We met the second time on Sunday, 15th June 2008, for lunch at the Selangor Club at Dataran Merdeka.

I arrived around noon and Bul was already there with about a dozen or so people. They were all having lunch on the veranda. Bul signalled to me to move to another table a bit farther from the group and he joined me there together with the fourth person whom he had brought when we first met at La Bodega. (This fourth person again did not say a word throughout the meeting).

Bul asked me why I did not want to expose the story he had told me earlier and I explained that I thought it was too risky and I would definitely get arrested and charged if I did that. Bul assured me that if that happens then he and Lt. Kol. Azmi would come forward to back up my story. They were prepared to go to court to testify in my defence if required to do so.

Marina told Bul that she was not prepared for me to take the risk in exposing the story. Bul assured Marina that he has all the documents to support the story. The documents are in the form of a confidential report by the Military Intelligence that confirms Rosmah, Lt. Kol. Nothayati and Lt. Kol. Aziz were all at the scene of Altantuya’s murder the night she was murdered. This report is the same report that was given to the Prime Minister (Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) and DYMM the Agong. Bul said that if the police took action against me they will then give me a copy of this report to use in my defence plus they will come forward to testify on my behalf.

After considering it for a while, I told Bul I would run the story. Marina, however, disagreed with my decision and she told Bul this. Bul assured Marina that all will be well and that he (Bul) will make sure of that (“We will never let Pet go to jail,” Bul said). Marina told Bul that if I were to be sent to jail then Malaysia Today would be in trouble. Who would keep Malaysia Today running, in particular to pay for the cost of maintaining the server, which at that time came to about RM10,000 a month? Bul told Marina that if I get sent to jail then they would take over the RM10,000 a month cost of maintaining Malaysia Today.

Bul then asked me when I would be doing the expose. I replied that I would write the story in a day or so but Bul disagreed. It must not be just a story, he told me. It has to be in the form of a Statutory Declaration. The government can just ignore a story. But they can’t ignore a SD, which is a legal document. They would have to take action if it was a SD. So Bul asked me to sign a SD instead of just writing a story.

I was still not fully satisfied that Bul’s story was accurate. I was also not sure whether Lt. Kol. Azmi really existed (although Bul showed me his calling card), let alone whether his story is real and whether he is reliable. So I called John Pang, who also works for Ku Li, and told John Pang what Bul had told me. I then asked John Pang to confirm the story with Ku Li.

John Pang called me back and said that Ku Li is aware of the story and that this person called Lt. Kol. Azmi is very reliable. It seems he always goes to Ku Li’s office to pass Ku Li classified information. According to John Pang, Lt Kol. Azmi is also close to Anwar Ibrahim.

I then called Din Merican, who at that time was working for Anwar Ibrahim, and asked Din Merican to also confirm the story with Anwar. Din Merican called me back and said exactly what John Pang had said. Din Merican added that Lt. Kol. Azmi is not only reliable but goes to meet Anwar very often to pass Anwar information, which had been very useful for the 2008 general election.

Based on these ‘references’ from Ku Li and Anwar, I then signed the SD on Wednesday, 18th June 2008, at the Kuala Lumpur High Court. My lawyer was present when I signed that SD and the following day he sent my SD to the Prosecutors in the Altantuya murder trial.

On Friday, 20th June 2008, an Umno Blog (http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/) published a copy of my SD. That same day, the Blog owner, Zakir, phoned me to ask about the SD and whether I did sign it. I responded with a ‘no comment’. He then published the SD and stated that he did call me and that I refused to comment. I do not know where Zakir got a copy of that SD from, as I did not send him a copy.

That same day, Friday, 20th June 2008, the Attorney General told the media that I had signed a false SD and that they will be investigating the matter. The following day, Saturday, 21st June 2008, the IGP told the media that they would be taking action against me for signing a false SD.

Both the AG and IGP based their comments on the copy of that SD that was published in http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/. This is because they both referred to the SD published in http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/ when they made their comments. This was reported in the mainstream media on Friday and Saturday, 20th and 21st June 2008 respectively.

Not long after that, I was arrested and charged for criminal defamation and on 11th September 2008 I was detained under the Internal Security Act and was subjected to a 10-day interrogation session where, amongst others, they wanted to know the details regarding the background to that SD. I told the Special Branch exactly what I had related above but no action was taken. In fact, Lt. Kol. Azmi was promoted from the number two to the head of the Special Branch of the Military Intelligence.

According to Datuk Zambri Ahmad, the Special Branch officer in charge of my interrogation, the information I was given by Bul was a red herring and was aimed at trapping me and to get me into trouble. I do not know where Datuk Zambri got that information from or why he told me that.

RAJA PETRA BIN RAJA KAMARUDIN