PRESS STATEMENT by the Altantuya Shaariibuu Foundation
Sunday will mark the start of Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s first official four-day visit to France to discuss bilateral, regional and international issues with top French leaders including President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
France is one of Malaysia’s key trading partners with bilateral trade in 2008 reaching a total of RM13.91 billion. Currently, several French companies operate in Malaysia including Lafarge (cement), Technip (infrastructure for gas and oiFrance is one of Malaysia ‘s key trading partners with bilateral trade in 2008 reaching a total of l exploration), Alcatel (telecommunications), Alstom (energy and railway equipment) and Carrefour (retail).
However what was omitted from mainstream reports in Malaysia and France is that Najib since assuming Premiership in March 2008 is easily the most controversial Prime Minister since political independence in 1957 as he has been linked, through two policemen in charge of his protection and according to the statutory declaration of a private investigator, to a murder case. And we are not talking of any “normal” murder case but the gruesome murder of a beautiful Mongolian woman Altantuya Shariibuu connected to the purchase of French submarines worth a billion euros.
How is Najib linked then? Apparently, she was introduced by Najib to Abdul Razak Baginda, a close friend and defense analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre think-tank, to work for the deal Baginda was brokering for the Malaysian government to buy three submarines from France for one billion euros. According to the same private investigator, the duo quickly became romantically involved.
In October 2006, Altantuya was informed that the commission of 114 million euros was paid into the account of Perimekar, a company Baginda controlled. Altantuya then went to Kuala Lumpur to demand her share of the commission, which was to have been US$500,000. She went missing on 19 October 2006. In the last letter she wrote before her murder, she said that she had been blackmailing Baginda. The private investigator who linked PM Najib to Altantuya a few days after reneged on his first statement and then disappeared.
The Malaysian police found fragments of her bone in a forested area in Shah Alam, some 30 km from Kuala Lumpur . Police investigation revealed that she was shot twice before C4 explosives were used on her remains. Baginda and two members of the police force were arrested and charged for her murder. The two murder suspects Azilah Hadri, 30 and Sirul Azhar Umar, 35 are members of the elite Unit Tindakan Khas (the Malaysian Police Special Action Force or counter-terrorism unit) and were both assigned to the office of the then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who was also the Defence Minister. Both policemen were found guilty and sentenced to death while Baginda was acquitted. The Malaysian Attorney General has not appealed on Baginda’s acquittal and he is now a free man.
The father of Altantuya, Professor Shariibuu Setev who had tried but failed to seek satisfactory justice and accountability in Malaysia will issue a statement in Paris to highlight his daughter’s murder and how its linked to the Malaysian Prime Minister and the billion euro French submarine deal.
