Malaysia’s UMNO goes after a critic

ARCHIVES 2012

By admin-s On Sep 7, 2012

(Asia Sentinel) – Never mind 150 million euros in bribes, a dead woman and a global scandal, go for the whistle-blower’s throat

In November of 2009, Suaram, the Kuala Lumpur-based human rights NGO, asked a French investigative law firm to look into what appeared to be huge bribes and kickbacks paid to Malaysian politicians by the French state-owned defense company DCN and its subsidiaries for the 2002 purchase of two submarines and the lease of a third.

The story was complicated by the sensational 2006 death of a Mongolian translator and party girl, Altantuya Shaariibuu, who was shot by two of then-Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak’s bodyguards and her body was blown up with military explosives. While the bodyguards were convicted of her for-hire killing, the court appeared to have actively suppressed any mention of who allegedly paid the two to kill her, raising Suaram’s concerns that there would be no justice delivered.

In the intervening three years, Suaram’s request to the law firm, headed by the Paris-based William Bourdon, resulted in a probe that exposed nearly 150 million euros in questionable funds paid to a close friend of then-defense minister Najib Tun Razak, now Malaysia’s prime minister.

Eventually, when a Paris-based investigating magistrate began to examine the evidence, the court turned up voluminous memos, emails and other documents from a raid on DCN’s offices indicating that massive bribes had been paid with the full knowledge of Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, Mahathir Mohamad, then the prime minister of Malaysia, and Najib, who had negotiated the purchase. The evidence detailed a host of other sleazy dealings.

Some 133 documents listing the alleged criminal dealings were obtained independently by Asia Sentinel and posted here on June 25 on the Internet. Although the documents are in French, those who do not speak the language can get them onto their computer screens and click on Google Translate. While the grammar is somewhat primitive, their meaning is very clear. Those who do not want to bother may read two stories that Asia Sentinel published on the subject on 25 June. They can be found here and here.

The publication of the documents kicked off a storm in France and Malaysia. But what the publication of the French documents or the investigation did not do was spur any probe of the purported criminal activities in Malaysia.

What it did do, however, was to precipitate an unprecedented attack by a wide range of pro-government bloggers, ruling coalition politicians and others on the reputation and integrity of Suaram, and by extension against Asia Sentinel for printing the documents.