‘Enough proof to reopen Altantuya case’
Recent revelations by businessman Deepak Jaikishan, lawyer Americk Singh Sidhu, and private investigator P Balasubramniam constitute as ‘new evidence’, says the Bar Council.
Anisah Shukry, FMT
The Malaysian Bar Council today established there was sufficient new evidence for the attorney-general to reopen investigations in the 2006 murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu.
“The revelations by Deepak Jaikishan, the late P Balasubramaniam, and Americk Singh Sidhu raised sufficient concern to warrant further investigations by the authorities,” Bar Council president Christopher Leong said in a statement today.
“Such further investigations may or may not lead to anything new, but we would only know if additional investigations are in fact undertaken,” he added.
Leong was responding to the Attorney-General’s Chambers statement on Wednesday that it would consider reopening investigations into Altantuya’s gruesome murder only if there was new evidence.
Attorney-General G Abdul Gani Patail said this after the Bar Council urged him to reopen the murder case following revelations from the late Balasubramaniam’s lawyer, Americk, at the council’s annual general meeting.
Americk had claimed that senior lawyer Cecil Abraham was responsible for drafting the private investigator’s second statutory declaration (SD) in 2008.
The second SD had reversed all claims made in Balasubramaniam’s first SD, which had implicated Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in Altantuya’s murder.
“Thus, the issue presently is not whether the AG has the discretion [to reopen investigations], but whether there is sufficient cause for him to do so,” Leong said.
Leong pointed out that businessman Deepak’s reaffirmation to the media that Balasubramaniam’s second SD was written to recant the first SD, as well as his role in the matter, was already considered as new evidence.
Deepak had claimed late last year that Rosmah Mansor, the wife of the prime minister, had requested him to persuade Balasubramaniam to write the second SD.
While Rosmah had not refuted Deepak’s allegation, she wrote in her biography that she played no direct role in Altantuya’s murder.
