Pic Linking Najib to Altantuya “Missing”
Free Malaysia Today
TEN months after his explosive investigative piece on the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaaribuu, Bangkok-based French journalist Arnaud Dubus (picture) gave Free Malaysia Today’s Sara Celestine an update on the scandal which has dragged down the good name of Najib Razak. In the 45-minute interview, Dubus, who wrote the article for French newspaper Liberation, admitted that the trail connecting the Prime Minister to Altantuya had gone cold. The 46-year-old journalist of 20 years believed the only evidence – a photograph – linking Najib to the dead Mongolian beauty would never be found. Here are excerpts from the interview.
It has been 10 months since you wrote the article. How come there has been no follow-up story from you?
There’s no follow up to my article because I could not find any new element to the story.
In Malaysia, there are allegations – especially from pro-Najib bloggers – that you were paid by pro-Anwar Ibrahim people to write the story.
I’ve read that there was a conspiracy initiated by me, Anwar and the Rothschild family (which owns Liberation). It was really kind of funny. But seriously, there is no such conspiracy.
I heard about (Altantuya’s murder) when I was in Malaysia at the end of 2008 to write an article on affirmative action in Malaysia and Malaysian politics. And I thought it was a great story for a French newspaper because it had all the elements of a good article – French weapon company, corruption, politics, sex, Mongolian lady and murder.
After checking I found that no French journalists did any (intensive) investigation of it. Most of the stories were second hand, from news agencies. And I thought I should investigate the story extensively by going to Mongolia, Malaysia and France. I discussed with my newspaper and it agreed.
At that point, I contacted Anwar’s people and I told them that I was interested in writing that story. They sort of did not encourage me to work on it. They told me they’ve been trying to find something but they could not find anything and thought that I would not find anything.
So I work on the story for three months, going to Mongolia and meeting Altantuya’s family and friends and people in Malaysia. In the course of this investigation I was given this police report by somebody who I don’t want to mention the name. Not somebody involved in politics.
And this report (written by one of the Altantuya’s convicted murderers, Sirul Omar, a Special Branch officer) was actually introduced in the court but it was never published (by the media). And I thought this was an element which would make my story more interesting.
There’s talk on the Internet that you have been quiet since the article appeared because you have been paid by the anti-Anwar people?
No, they have a lot of imagination. What can I say?
However, I was a bit surprised by the stir my story created. I was not expecting the story to have a big impact in Malaysia.
