Poser over Mutalib’s ‘sudden’ deaths

Controversial author Mutalib MD's sudden death, days before he was due to testify at the Sabah RCI has sparked rumours of black magic and assassinations.

COMMENT

Political writer and author Mutalib MD was a friend and an unsung hero.

I dare say here that its because of Mutalib’s years of painstaking efforts that Sabah finally got its Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants in Sabah.

Mutalib, 52, was the first person to expose the “I/C Palsu” and citizenship-for-votes scam in Sabah.

He was also a “key witness” in the ongoing RCI inquiry by virtue of the many books he wrote which were rich with highly controversial details.

But despite his many “exposes”, he was never challenged in court.

In fact his sudden demise which came just days before he was to appear in the RCI witness box has raised questions and sparked rumours with some Facebook postings suggesting that he might have been the victim of an assassination plot.

While alive, Mutalib himself had raised this assassination “theory” many times.

The most recent was when we were discussing the death of private investigator P Balasubramaniam.

(Bala was one of the key characters in the story of the Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu’s murder.

(Bala had made two statutory declarations: the first contained allegation that Najib had intimate relationship with Altantuya; in the second SD, Bala withdrew the allegation implicating Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in the gruesome murder.

(But early this year after spending years in exile, Bala returned to Malaysia and his lawyer Americk Siddhu told the world that the second SD was prepared on the instruction of Najib. Bala died on March 15 from breathing difficuties)

The somewhat sinister feel to the death had not gone pass Mutalib.

Science and witchcraft

Mutalib had wondered if the “government” could be “infecting” its “critics” with illness.

In fact Mutalib even told me and I quote: “I don’t want to make any reckless accusations, but this (Bala’s sudden death) is very, very, very strange.

“Would it be strange if Malaysia had developed a technology to induce heart failure or stroke, and for no one to know it?’

Mutalib’s musing is not far fetched.

As with many conspiracy theories, there are grains of truth that lend such stories plausible.

There have been past evidences that governments have used poison to target enemies of the state.

For instance in 2006, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko became sick and died from being poisoned by a dose of radioactive polonium-210.

Before his death, he had accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of the assassination.

Still, government denials of sinister, clandestine assassination plots are to be expected.

It however has done little to discourage emerging conspiracy theorists.

Meanwhile aside from science, there are also rumours of blackmagic and witchcraft surrounding Mutalib’s death.

Coincidentally similar speculations surged through the grapevine following Bala’s death.

Selvarajah Somiah is a geologist and freelance writer. He blogs at selvarajasomiah.wordpress.com