Finally! French Act in Altantuya Murder Case
Death: the price of being in the know
Najib was recipient of bribe funds, prosecutors charge
The
former boss of a French defense company has been indicted in Paris on
charges of bribing Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, involving one
of the most notorious scandals in Malaysian history, including sex,
corruption, murder and political chicanery.
Bernard
Baiocco, 72, former president of Thales International Asia (Thint Asia),
a unit controlled by the French munitions manufacturer DCN, was
indicted on Dec 15. for “active bribery of foreign public officials on
people including Najib Razak,” according to Agence France Press, quoting
judicial sources.
Najib is
enmeshed in yet another monumental scandal in Malaysia today over US$681
million mysteriously deposited in his personal account in AmBank
Malaysia in 2013 that has nothing to do with the affair when he was
defense minister, although both cases illustrate the depth of corruption
that has overtaken Malaysia. At least four questionable deaths, three
of which were outright murder, have been linked to various cases
involving Najib.
As stories have
increasingly tied him to wrongdoing, he has sought to intimidate the
domestic press, most of it owned by government-aligned political
parties. He has sought
vainly to buy up opposition websites and has blocked two of the toughest
international critics, Asia Sentinel and Sarawak Report, as well as
Medium, a popular blog platform used as a mirror site for opposition
publications.
Najib was
minister of defense at the time of the alleged bribe, amounting to €114
million which appears to have been passed on to the United Malays
National Organization. In the early part of the first decade, he
embarked on a whirlwind of defense purchases, almost all of which were
tainted by bribery. However, it was the purchase of two French Scorpene
submarines that represented the most spectacular scandal. The episode
was the subject of a prize-winning series of stories by Asia Sentinel.
Baiocco was held
in custody for 48 hours, according to AFP, together with the
Directorate of Naval Construction (DCN) for the sale, who was also
indicted for complicity in misuse of corporate assets, the sources said.
According to documents made available to Asia Sentinel in 2013, the
scandal involved French officials all the way up to including Alain
Juppe, then the foreign minister, and was conducted with the knowledge
of then-Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
DCN weapons
sales across the world were the subject of astonishing scandals,
including the deaths of French engineers in Pakistan, reportedly because
bribes to Pakistani generals were stopped by French President Jacques
Chirac. Others died in Taiwan. DCN has been accused of bribing
government officials in half a dozen countries.
“This is an
important and encouraging step,” William Bourdon, the crusading French
lawyer who brought the case on behalf of Suaram, the Malaysian reform
NGO, told AFP. “The French judges show, even if the investigation goes
on, their ability to dissect complex corruption mechanisms. In some
respects, the investigation is just beginning.”
Bourdon was kicked out of Malaysia when he flew there in 2013 to attempt to interview witnesses involved in the case.
The story gained
notoriety with the October, 2006 murder by two of Najib’s bodyguards of
Altantuya Shaariibuu, a jet-setting Mongolian interpreter and party
girl who was said by a Malaysian private detective named Perumal
Balasubramaniam, in a sworn statement to have been the plaything of
Najib before she was passed on to Razak Baginda — reportedly, the
private detective said, because Najib felt a foxy girlfriend who liked
anal sex would impede his progress to the prime minister job. Balasubiamaniam
later died of a heart attack although his associates in Kuala Lumpur
believe he may have been murdered via an injected drug to induce heart
failure during a visit to a government-run hospital. He died shortly after the visit.
Asia Sentinel was given the Society of Publishers in Asia’s highest award for investigative reporting in 2012 for its series of stories on the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu and the massive corruption connected to her death with the purchase of Scorpene submarines by the Malaysian government from the French government-owned munitions maker DCN and its subsidiaries. A package of the stories can be found here.
After supposedly
being passed on to Razak Baginda by Najib, according to reports in
Kuala Lumpur and France, Razak Baginda and Altantuya toured Europe in
Razak Baginda’s Ferrari, pausing for pictures in Paris, before the two
broke up. But the 28-year-old Altantuya, apparently pregnant, was
furious that the US$500,000 promised her for her role as interpreter in
the final stages of the Scorpene deal, flew to Kuala Lumpur to demand
payment according to a note she left behind in her hotel room. She
was abducted from in front of Razak Baginda’s house in Kuala Lumpur by
Najib’s bodyguards and murdered, according to a cautioned statement
delivered by one of the two that was never delivered in court. Her body
was wrapped in C4 explosive and blown up, presumably to destroy the DNA
of the fetus.
The trial of the
two, lasting months, was by all accounts designed to steer away from
any indication of who had hired the two to kill her. It is a question
that has never been asked, and in fact an appellate judge ruled that
asking motive in the case was irrelevant. Eventually the two were
pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang. However, temporarily freed on
appeal, one of the two, Sirul Azhar Umar, fled to Australia where he is
being represented by two United Malays National Organization lawyers. Why UMNO lawyers are defending a convicted murderer in Australia has not been explained. He is said to be negotiating for a huge bribe to keep his mouth shut.
In Paris,
according to AFP, the prosecuting judges said they suspected sums from a
firm called “C5 commercial engineering” provided for payment
by DCNI, a subsidiary of DCN, of €30 million to Thales International
Asia, for “selling expenses for export (FCE).” The “selling expenses”
are suspected of being a bribe.
Another company,
the Hong Kong-based Terasasi Hong Kong Ltd., whose main shareholder was
Razak Baginda, received almost the same amount for consultations.
Investigators suspect the consultations of being a front for bribes.
The counsel for
Mr. Baiocco, Jean-Yves Le Borgne, said his client’s indictment was based
on “legal acrobatics” because “there is no evidence” that the former
minister had received funding and its advisor must be considered a
“commercial agent,” therefore outside the scope of corruption of public
officials.
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