ARE YOU SURE YOU DIDN'T KNOW ALTANTUYA - Zaid grills Najib

PETALING JAYA - Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim has called for a proper inquiry to determine if prime minister Najib Razak knew Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Mongolian woman who was murdered eight years ago, who was implicated in the Navy’s purchase of two French-built submarines.

Zaid wrote in in his blog today that a proper enquiry was needed to determine if Najib knew Altantuya. “If the answer is no, then it might be true that no one ordered Sirul to kill her and that (Azilah Hadri, the other accused) and Sirul acted of their own volition. We can then all sleep easy,” he said.

Najib was also indirectly implicated in the case through his association with a defence analyst whose company received millions in commissions, and through two members of a VIP protection unit who were convicted and sentenced to death for the murder.

One of the two, Sirul Azhar Umar, fled to Australia while awaiting the court decision. Dr Mahathir has called for the case to be reopened to determine the truth of Sirul’s statements that he was only acting under orders.

Zaid criticised a media blackout of Dr Mahathir’s call for answers and urged all Malaysians to support the former prime minister in his search of answers.

He questioned why Najib had “taken the trouble to go to a mosque” to take an oath that he had never known Altantuya. “He just needed to say so. I don’t know Paris Hilton, Ziana Zain or Madonna and there’s no need for me to take an oath to that effect,” Zaid said.

Zaid postulated that the only reason for Najib to do so “was probably because someone declared in an affidavit that Najib knew Altantuya”, Zaid said. “This would have been extremely damaging, and why would anyone say something like that if it were not true?

Zaid said Najib’s lack of explanation was a characteristic of his six-year-old administration. Another characteristic was the climate of fear in the country, with people afraid to speak.

He decried “a complete blackout” in Umno and Barisan Nasional-owned media about Dr Mahathir’s article on Thursday in which he raised questions about the wealth of Najib Razak’s family, the Altantuya murder, the financial affairs of government-owned 1Malaysia Development Bhd and the reported government purchase of a new VIP jet.

He said Mahathir’s statements received no coverage or comment in the Umno-BN media empire, using the word journalists within quotation marks to cast doubt about their professionalism. “Either they believe that news is not newsworthy, or they were too frightened to publish his statements as any good journalists should have,” he said.

“Everybody lives in fear,” he said. “Senior civil servants in the Ministry of Finance and Bank Negara clearly live in fear; otherwise, the 1MDB fiasco would have surfaced long ago. We all live in fear because Altantuya got bombed out of existence, and the private investigator P. Balasubramaniam was dumped out of the country. Strange things have happened … so Umno leaders are fearful of asking him to answer Tun Dr Mahathir’s questions,” he said.

In a pointed and disparaging remark that seemed aimed squarely at Khairy Jamaluddin, the Umno Youth leader, Zaid said: “All they (Umno politicians) can muster is the lame response that Najib has already explained everything. That’s the kind of thing you expect minions and lemmings to say.”

Yesterday Khairy had asked Najib to squarely face up to Mahathir and answer questions. “If we ignore this, it will worsen. We need to resolve this. We have to answer and although we feel that the answers had been given, we have to answer them again,” Khairy was quoted as saying.

Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Mansor was also quoted in Utusan Malaysia today as denying that there was any problem between Dr Mahathir and Naijb. “All issues and criticisms raised have been answered,” he was quoted as saying.

Zaid said: “I don’t really care if Najib rules forever, so long as I am satisfied that he did not know Altantuya at all.”

He called on all Malaysians to rally in support of Dr Mahathir’s quest “to find answers to questions that have been troubling us all”, praising the former prime minister’s courage in keeping up the fight despite his years. - FMT