To pre-empt lurid Bala thrilla, Najib warns against believing RPK

Wong Choon Mei, Malaysia Chronicle

In a defensive move aimed at pre-empting calls for his resignation ahead of lurid details that are bound to emerge next week highlighting his role and relationship in the Altantuya murder and submarines graft case, Prime Minister Najib Razak has warned Malaysians not to believe top blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who operates the popular news portal Malaysia Today ( http://malaysia-today.net/ ).

“If Raja Petra is funded by the opposition, it means that his statements are politically-motivated. We should weigh them carefully and not merely accepting them,” Najib was quoted telling national news agencyBernama.

Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor have been implicated in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder as well as a billion-ringgit submarines graft case by a private investigator, P Balasubramaniam, who ironically was hired by the PM's close friend Razak Baginda.

Why disallow MACC from going to London then?

Baginda had instructed Bala, a former police officer, to stop Altantuya from blackmailing him. The 28-year old Mongolian translator had threatened to blow the whistle on his role in receiving alleged kickbacks from the government's purchase of two Scorpene submarines worth RM6.7 billion in 2002. Najib, who was then the defense minister, had ordered the acquisition even though there had been public disquiet about the submarines' effectiveness in patrolling Malaysia's shallow-watered coastline.

Due to the Najib administration's refusal to initiate any graft probe, civil rights groups led by SUARAM have earlier this year lodged a complaint with the French police. They are trying to claim back on behalf of Malaysian taxpayers the alleged kickback from French naval firm DCNS, who sold the Scorpenes to the defense ministry.

"If Najib is serious about his credibility and the reputation of the country, he would have ordered the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to go to London and take down Bala’s statement next week,” Batu MP Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.

“But he didn’t. Instead, the indications are that he ordered the MACC, no doubt through the Attorney-General, to not go to London. If Bala reveals all the details, it will go on public record. Somehow, sometime, somewhere, someone will eventually dig out the case and the truth will be revealed to the world. This is what the Najib administration wants to avoid. So it is not Raja Petra or Balasubramaniam, it is Najib himself that Malaysians should be wary of and think carefully about before they believe anything he says."

Opposition involved?

In the past few days, a busy stream of Umno supporters including Bayan Baru MP Zahrain Mohd Hashim have been hurling accusations at PKR co-ordinator Zaid Ibrahim for having links to Raja Petra. Zahrain even warned he had photos of the two men together and urged the MACC to investigate who was funding Bala, who now lives overseas in self-exile for fear of his safety and that of his family’s.

Najib’s cousin Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein too has joined the chorus seeking to highlight the link between the Pakatan Rakyat and Raja Petra in an apparent attempt to deflect public attention and create suspicion for what Bala may reveal at his press conference next week.

Hishammuddin even went so far as to suggest that it was wrong for anyone to have any contact with the fugitive blogger. Like Bala, Raja Petra lives overseas in self-exile. He was prosecuted for criminally defaming Najib and Rosmah, but says the charges were maliciously trumped up by the Attorney-General, Gani Patail. Despite being forced out of the country, he still is able to operate his website and also keep in contact with his wide network of high-level government sources.

"Of course, Najib and Umno will want to throw the blame back on Pakatan and PKR in particular. But if it seems that Pakatan leaders, for example DAP's Karpal Singh and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, are frequently involved in the two cases, it is because they have no choice," PKR vice president Sivarasa Rasiah told Malaysia Chronicle.

"It is their job, their duty as the champions of the people. Whoever has been downtrodden and bullied can always approach us and we will try to help them. Look at Altantuya's family - Najib's judiciary insisted on a security deposit before allowing her father to take up a case against the AG. If Pakatan wanted to 'buy' them, we would have paid the RM60,000 for them but we did not. In the end, it was the Mongolian government, which gave them the funds. So, what Najib is trying to do now is to wriggle out from his own dirt."

The thrilla is still on

Despite the MACC chickening out on next week's meeting scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, Bala has vowed to conduct a press conference on July 7 to debrief the Malaysian public and the world at large on what has transpired since he re-surfaced in late 2009 after a year in hiding in several Asian countries, including India.

So far, he has revealed that he was offered a RM5 million ringgit bribe by Najib’s brother Nazim Razak and Rosmah's friend Deepak Jaikishan to retract a damning statutory declaration he made in 2008. He was also asked to leave Malaysia and keep silent on the case.

In the 2008 statutory declaration (see below), Bala revealed that Baginda told him Altantuya had been Najib’s mistress and she had come to Malaysia to claim her US$500,000 share of the commission from the Scorpenes deal. The beautiful 28-year old speaks four languages including Russian and is believed to have helped Baginda in negotiations with DCNS.

It has also been reported by French newspaper La Liberation that a jealous Rosmah put her foot down when she found out her rival was in town and refused to let Baginda pay her a cent. The talk in the coffe-shops throughout the nation is that a pregnant Altantuya had asked for a RM10 million settlement. Najib and Rosmah have denied ever knowing her, although Baginda has admitted having an affair with her.

Two former bodyguards of the first couple have been sentenced to hang for Altantuya’s murder even though they never met her before the night of her killing. The Altantuya trial has remained fresh in the minds of the Malaysian people, who are intrigued by her haunting beauty and sympathize with the brutal way in which her body was blown to bits with military-grade C4 explosives to prevent identification.

Malaysians also remember because several key question were never allowed to be asked throughout the court case: was there anyone and who was it who ordered her murder?