NAJIB-ALTANTUYA LINK ON WALL STREET JOURNAL!!!!

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Killing rattles Malaysian politics — Top official’s associates face trial in death of a Mongolian woman
By Yaroslav Trofimov
1695 words
29 March 2007
The Wall Street Journal Asia
English

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — On the evening of Oct. 19, as Malaysia’s Muslims broke the Ramadan fast, a slender Mongolian woman was forced into a unmarked car in an upscale Kuala Lumpur suburb and driven away.

Hours later, two bullets were shot into her skull. Then, the naked body of 28-year-old Altantuya Shaariibuu was blown apart with military-grade C-4 explosives and abandoned in the tropical jungle.

What has happened since is sending tremors through Malaysia’s political establishment. The investigation into Ms. Shaariibuu’s disappearance has implicated close associates of the country’s second-most-powerful politician, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Najib Abdul Razak. A key political adviser will go on trial in June on charges of abetting the murder. Two members of Mr. Najib’s security detail have been charged with carrying it out.

The connection has propelled this murder mystery onto the center stage of Malaysian politics, calling into question the near-certainty that Mr. Najib will succeed current Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The coming trial is also viewed as a barometer of how far Malaysia has opened up in the three years since Mr. Abdullah succeeded his more authoritarian predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, and began relaxing restrictions on political debate, the media and the courts.

“This murder case is very important — it is a test, not just of Najib, but also of Abdullah’s integrity and leadership,” says former Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim, who was imprisoned on sodomy charges after falling out with Dr. Mahathir in 1998 and was cleared under the current premier. The scandal has touched off a feeding frenzy in Malaysia’s press and blogosphere, and now opposition leaders like Mr. Anwar are riding a wave of popular outrage over the murder ahead of national elections, expected later this year.

A nation of 25 million people with one of Asia’s most dynamic economies, Muslim-majority Malaysia is an important U.S. ally in the war against Islamic radicalism. It is often cited as an example of moderate, open-minded Islam.

One of the most eloquent spokesmen for that vision was Abdul Razak Baginda, 47, a confidant of Mr. Najib and head of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center, a political think tank that worked closely with the Malaysian government. A British-educated military scholar who was named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr. Razak was also involved in military procurement deals, helping negotiate Malaysia’s 2002 purchase of French submarines.

At a party in Hong Kong’s posh Peninsula Hotel in 2004, he met Ms. Shaariibuu. Raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, and educated in Beijing, the petite Mongolian was part of the international jet set. She used her fluency in Russian, English, Chinese and Japanese to work as a free-lance interpreter, according to her father and sister.

In an affidavit submitted in the murder case, Mr. Razak — who is married and has a teenage daughter — said his acquaintance with Ms. Shaariibuu quickly turned into an illicit affair. The two traveled together on romantic trips to Singapore, Shanghai and Paris. Mr. Razak also said in the affidavit that he had made cash payments of $10,000 to Ms. Shaariibuu, whose two young sons reside in Mongolia, “three or four times” and had wired her money on other occasions.

According to the affidavit and attached transcripts of his initial statements to the police, Mr. Razak broke off the affair a year later. He said he thought Ms. Shaariibuu was being “manipulative” and distrusted her tales of financial woe. That is when he said Ms. Shaariibuu turned from lover to blackmailer, demanding cash in exchange for silence about his “secrets.”

Mr. Razak said he paid up at first. But by April 2006, he was fed up and severed contact, according to the affidavit.
Ms. Shaariibuu was undeterred: She tried to meet Mr. Razak in Kuala Lumpur in August and again in October, according to the affidavit and her relatives. Before leaving Mongolia for the last time, she told her father that she was involved in a business venture that would make her enough money for the rest of her life, her father said.

On Oct. 9, accompanied by two Mongolian friends, Ms. Shaariibuu turned up at Mr. Razak’s office at the Strategic Research Center. Guards turned her away, and she threatened to make a scene at his home, according to Mr. Razak’s affidavit.

At this point, Mr. Razak said he resorted to his connections in the office of Deputy Prime Minister Najib. Malaysia’s Muslims are governed by Islamic family law, and an adultery scandal involving a prominent member of the ruling elite was bound to embarrass the government.

On Oct. 16, Mr. Razak said in his affidavit, he explained his predicament to Mr. Najib’s personal aide-de-camp, Musa Safri, a high-ranking security officer. According to the affidavit, Mr. Razak had gotten to know Mr. Musa while carrying out official work for the deputy prime minister. Two days after that conversation, Mr. Musa dispatched to Mr. Razak’s think tank an officer from the special VIP security unit entrusted with protecting Mr. Najib and Prime Minister Abdullah — Malaysia’s equivalent of the White House Secret Service detail.

The officer, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, was head of Mr. Najib’s personal security team, according to Mr. Azilah’s lawyer. Mr. Azilah established his credentials by declaring that he had “personally killed between six and 10 people” and that he could easily “finish off the girl,” Mr. Razak alleged in his affidavit. (Mr. Azilah’s lawyer has disputed the affidavit and denies his client made such statements.)

Mr. Razak recalled in the affidavit that he was “shocked” at Mr. Azilah’s murder claim and replied that he merely needed police protection. Nevertheless, Mr. Razak gave Mr. Azilah details about Ms. Shaariibuu, including the name of the hotel where she was staying.

The following day, at about 7 p.m., as Mr. Razak was breaking the Ramadan fast with his wife and daughter in the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, Ms. Shaariibuu appeared, accompanied by two Mongolian friends, outside the gate of his residence.

According to the affidavit, staff at Mr. Razak’s house alerted him to her arrival. Ms. Shaariibuu was told to return later in the evening — alone. When she did, Mr. Razak said he called Mr. Azilah, the affidavit said.

Mr. Azilah, according to the affidavit, soon arrived at Mr. Razak’s residence in an unmarked car, accompanied by a fellow officer from the VIP unit and a female police constable. They shoved Ms. Shaariibuu inside and took her away, according to witness statements. She was never seen alive in public again.

At some point that night, according to the affidavit, Mr. Azilah called Mr. Razak with a message: “Tonight, Sir, you can sleep well.”

Mr. Razak bumped into Mr. Musa, Mr. Najib’s aide-de-camp, at the deputy prime minister’s office the following day and asked what had happened to the Mongolian woman. According to Mr. Razak’s affidavit, Mr. Musa replied then and in later meetings that he hadn’t been updated by Mr. Azilah. (Mr. Musa, who hasn’t been charged with any crime, didn’t respond to requests for comment.)

Ms. Shaariibuu’s disappearance didn’t go unnoticed. Her father, Setev, a filmmaker and psychology professor at Mongolia’s State University, arrived in Kuala Lumpur to look for her. Alerted by Ms. Shaariibuu’s two Mongolian friends and initially assuming that she had been arrested, he contacted Malaysian police. They quickly found witnesses to the Oct. 19 kidnapping, carried out in plain sight outside Mr. Razak’s home.

Interrogations of Mr. Razak then led to Mr. Azilah and his fellow VIP unit officer, who had to be recalled from a mission protecting Prime Minister Abdullah in Pakistan. Eventually, the investigators came upon a jungle clearing outside Kuala Lumpur, where charred bone fragments were found on Nov. 6.

Subsequent DNA testing, made with the assistance of Ms. Shaariibuu’s father, confirmed that these were indeed the Mongolian woman’s remains.

A week later, Mr. Azilah and the fellow VIP unit officer, Sirul Azhar Umar, were charged with murder, Mr. Razak with abetting them. All three have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bail. They face the death penalty if convicted. The female constable hasn’t been charged.

Attorneys for the two VIP unit officers dispute Mr. Razak’s affidavit, which was submitted as part of a failed bail application in late January. Mr. Azilah, his lawyer insists, was simply doing his job. “My client is a senior-ranking officer in the special unit of the police, and he has always acted on instructions — including in this case,” says the attorney, Zulkifli Noordin.

Mr. Zulkifli declined to say who issued these instructions. After Ms. Shaariibuu was spirited away from Mr. Razak’s house, his client took her to the national police headquarters in central Kuala Lumpur for interrogation, Mr. Zulkifli said. What happened after that, Mr. Zulkifli won’t yet say. The Malaysian police have declined to comment while the case is in court.

As newly emboldened Malaysian newspapers first reported the arrests of Mr. Razak and the two officers late last year, the police tried to halt the coverage and briefly detained five local reporters. Opposition politicians like Mr. Anwar, the former deputy premier, cried coverup. Prime Minister Abdullah himself stepped in, ordering a thorough investigation and assuring fellow Malaysians that “nobody is above the law.”

Unlike Mr. Abdullah, his deputy, Mr. Najib, has kept silent so far, ignoring demands of opponents that he explain any personal role in this drama. The spotlight on Mr. Najib, however, is likely to intensify once the actual murder trial begins. Come June, the chairman of Malaysia’s biggest opposition party, Karpal Singh, will be waiting to pounce in that courtroom — as the attorney representing Ms. Shaariibuu’s family.

(Source: Sex, Politics, Murder and Possible High Level Cover-up)