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Malaysia Clears the Deck for National Elections |
| Asia Sentinel, Friday, 16 March 2012 |
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He's ready, but the courts aren't
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Embarrassing cases are pushed forward past anticipated summer polls
What do these controversies have in common?
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It was announced last weekend that Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, Malaysia’s minister for women, family and community development, had been forced out of her position as a result of what has become known as the “cowgate” scandal and will step down on April 8 when her current term ends.
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On Mar. 13, the day after Sharizat’s husband, Mohamed Salleh Ismail, was charged in court in the alleged misuse of RM250 million of government money in scandal, Zuraidah Kamaruddin, an opposition member of parliament sought to bring up the matter, only to be told by the speaker, Amin Mulia, that the matter is now in court and is therefore sub judice – Latin for under judicial consideration and therefore prohibited from public discussion elsewhere, taking away a potent campaign issue for the opposition.
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On the same weekend Shahrizat was put out to pasture, Malaysia’s Securities Commission announced after months of controversy that the embattled chairwoman, Zarinah Anwar, would step down at the end of the month in the wake of a blatant conflict of interest involving her husband’s trading in shares.
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Arguments in the appeal of the two convicted killers of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, first expected to be held on Feb. 10, then delayed until March 9, have now been put off until Aug. 27 and 28.
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On Jan. 9, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim was declared not guilty in his long-running and widely publicized trial on sodomy charges, only to have the case appealed on Juan. 25. The government’s appeal of the not-guilty verdict is expected to be held far into the future.
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There are a variety of other controversies hanging fire as well, including the trial of former Malaysian Chinese Association boss Ling Liong Sik over a massive scandal in the construction of the Port Klang Free Zone, in which the government could lose as much as RM12.45 billion (US$3.93 billion) in the botched construction of the Port. The prosecution finished up its case against Ling several months ago but only recently announced that he must put on a defense. It is uncertain when he will be called to do so.
What these cases have in common is all of these matters are being pushed forward into the future or taken care of in other ways, say observers in Kuala Lumpur.
“They are trying to push everything after June or July which makes us more convinced polls are going to be in June,” said a Kuala Lumpur businessman.
Any and all of the matters have the potential to disturb what the Barisan Nasional, or national ruling coalition, hopes will be the smooth conduct of national elections that are expected to be called sometime during the summer, perhaps in May or June.
Of the attempt to declare sub judice the National Feedlot scandal that cost Shahrizat her job Kim Quek, a spokesman for the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, responded in a prepared statement: “It is not difficult to see that the present drama is a carefully crafted stratagem involving the concerted effort of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, police and the attorney general, to extricate the Barisan Nasional from a potentially crippling predicament on the eve of an impending election.
Well before the end of Anwar’s trial in December last year, a source with connections to the United Malays National Organization sketched out a scenario for Asia Sentinel in which Anwar would be declared not guilty of having homosexual sex with his onetime aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.
The theory was that a guilty verdict would generate sympathy for the opposition and for Anwar in that it would be regarded as hopelessly rigged because of a long list of discrepancies in the trial. A not-guilty verdict would be similarly unpalatable for the prosecution because it would be a reminder that Anwar had spent more than three years under a cloud since Saiful made the charge against him on June 29, 2008.
Whether planned or not, the appeal worked out as positive for the government as Saiful’s father, Azlan Mohd Lazim, held an emotional press conference demanding that the attorney general appeal “for the sake of my son.” Outraged statements over the verdict filled the mainstream press until Jan. 25, when Attorney General Abdul Ghani Othman announced his office would file the appeal. Thus the government got nearly a month of publicity in addition to shunting the decision far into the future.
Equally, the appeal of the convicted murderers in the politically charged case of the Mongolian translator and party girl Altantuya Shaariibuu was obviously a problem because of long-running suspicions in Kuala Lumpur that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, were somehow connected to the case. At the very least it calls up questions over a 114 million euro “commission” paid to Najib’s best friend, Abdul Razak Baginda, for the purchase by Malaysia of submarines from the French defense contractor DCNS. Most of the money is believed to have been kicked back to either UMNO of French politicians.
Altantuya was murdered on Oct. 18, 2006. The interminable delays in getting justice for the murdered woman have led to suspicions that the delays are deliberate in order to erase the crime from the public mind. In the latest episode, the appeal of the two murderers supposedly was delayed from Feb. 10 because records of the trial were sent to the prison where one of the bodyguards was incarcerated, something lawyers in Kuala Lumpur find inconceivable, since records are always delivered to the defendants’ attorneys and never to the inmates themselves. Then, although the case was to go to the appellate court on March 9, it was quietly moved forward to August.
“If someone suggested to me that is why all the timing seems to be falling into place just about now (in preparation for an election), it certainly is what people are thinking ,” said a Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer. “You need to be aware of what’s going on. Damage control, that is what they are doing.” |
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| ******* |
| Investigating Judges Named in Malaysia Submarine Graft Case |
| Written by Celine Boileau and John Berthelsen |
| Sunday, 18 March 2012 |
A Scorpene submarine ties up n Malaysia
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French case draws closer to Malaysian officials
Two magistrates have been nominated in Paris to investigate the politically explosive 2002 purchase of Scorpene submarines by the Malaysian Ministry of Defense when Najib Tun Razak was Defense Minister.
The case focuses on a 1.2 billion euro contract called a “programme soumalais” with the state-owned French defense giant DCNS, formerly known as DCN. The contract was later transferred to Armaris, a joint venture between DCNS and the French company Thales. In questioning in the Dewan Rakyat, the Malaysian Parliament, it transpired that a €114 million (US$150 million at current exchange rates) commission had been paid to a newly-minted company called Perimekar Sdn Bhd, nominally owned by the wife of one of Najib’s best friends, Abdul Razak Baginda, then the head of a Malaysian think-tank.
It is likely to take several years before the case comes to fruition. In the meantime Najib, now Malaysia’s prime minister and head of the United Malays National Organization, the country’s biggest political party, is preparing for snap elections, possibly in May or June, according to political observers in Kuala Lumpur.
At the heart of the story are allegations of a massive scandal involving not only Malaysian officials but top French politicians and arms purchases in Pakistan, Taiwan, India, Chile, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and other countries as DCNS geared up to sell naval equipment across the planet. The allegations include blackmail, kickbacks, a string of murders in Pakistan, Taiwan and Malaysia and involvement of such top figures as former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and others.
Other magistrates are handling different aspects of the affair. One, called “l’affaire Karachi,” has raised suspicions of the involvement of the current French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who faces a difficult re-election campaign. Sarkozy has angrily denied any involvement. In that case, the deaths of 11 French engineers who were blown up in Karachi was first laid to a bomb set by Al Qaeda. However the bomb was later believed to have been set off by Pakistani military officials angered because the French had reneged on bribes promised by Balladur but cancelled by Jacques Chirac after he defeated Balladur for the presidency.
Judges investigating the affair have been probing whether Balladur received “retro commissions” or kickbacks for the contract. Balladur has given no credible explanation for 10 million French francs (€1.5 million) which found their way into his campaign coffers. Sarkozy was his campaign finance minister at the time.
In accordance with the French legal system, the Malaysia case has first been the subject of a preliminary survey from the financial division of the legal police. So the appointment of the two investigating judges, Serge Tournaire and Roger Le Loire, follows more than two years of investigation. The two are known for previous investigations on national and international corruption matters. They have broader powers to investigate independently and can call witnesses and conduct international surveys.
According to financial statements, the cost of the program was divided into four contracts:
- The contrat Scorpene, about €670 million, for two Scorpene submarines, built in France and Spain, and delivered in July 2009 and July 2010 ;
- The contrat Formation, signed in 2003, to train 156 submariners over four years.
- The contrat Ouessant for the rehabilitation of an Agosta-type submarine which has never seen service and is now a museum in Malaysia. The two together amount to 313 million euros/
- The contrat Malsout, provided logistics for the installation of Malaysian navy personnel, over 200 people located in Brest and Cherbourg, from December 2002.
The payment of bribes -- called commissions in this case – to foreign public officials as part of international contracts has been illegal in France since the ratification of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Convention on bribery of September 2000.
Since the beginning of the investigation, bribes amounting to €32.5 million have been investigated, authorities say.
In other cases involving DCNS, particlarly the Karachi one, Nicholas Bazire, 54, the best man at Sarkozy’s wedding to supermodel Carla Bruni, was arrested and charged with misuse of public funds in Balladur’s 1995 presidential campaign. Another friend, Thierry Gaubert, Sarkozy’s cabinet chief when he was budget and communication minister, was arrested earlier.
Sarkozy is seeking avoid the appointment of an instruction judge in other aspects of the DCN case.. But the political knives may be out, especially if Sarkozy loses the presidential election.Having been named in the press in the Karachi case, observers in Paris say he could use the Malaysian case as a weapon against the Socialists. Currently his Socialist opponent, Francois Hollande, leads him by 10 percentage points. The first round of voting is to be held in May.
The case also holds obvious political implications for Najib. A former DCN financial director, questioned in another case, alleged that the Malaysian case violated the OECD bribery convention. The Malaysian end of the episode has received widespread publicity, not just because of the €114 million commission paid to Razak Baginda’s company, but because of the gruesome murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a Mongolian translator and party girl, who was killed in 2006 by two of Najib’s bodyguards and whose body was blown up with military explosives in a patch of jungle outside Shah Alam.
Razak Baginda’s jilted lover, Altantuya was believed to have served as a translator in at least some of the negotiations over the submarines and is believed to have accompanied Razak Baginda and Najib to France. In a note found after her death, she said she was attempting to blackmail Razak Baginda for US$500,000. Najib has sworn on the Quran that he never met the woman.
The two bodyguards were found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. Although Razak Baginda was arrested along with the two, he was freed without having to put on a defense and immediately left the country for England. The appeal of the two bodyguards has droned on for more than two years and has been delayed again until August, after expected elections.
The French judges face many difficulties. During a police search of the DCNS offices few files were allowed to be opened. Most remain closed on the pretext that they contain military secrets.
Moreover, no DCNS cases have yet been completed. Unlike in the United States, no plea bargaining is allowed. The judges are almost certain to face industry opposition, particularly in this case, which made Malaysia DCNS’s first export customer.
The judges may also face political opposition despite their independence. The Scorpene contracts spanned a long series of governments – prepared with the approval of the government of the Socialist Party, signed under the conservative Union pour UN Movement Popularize government of then-Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Refrain. Jacques Chirac was the president of both governments. Suspicions of illegal kickbacks --“retrocommissions” – will complicate the problems.
The investigation, however, should finally allow investigators to confront the complexity of the financial circuits used by companies. Since the ratification of the OECD Convention, companies have thought twice about diverting commission payments directly to foreign public officials, steering payments through foreign subsidiaries (Armaris had a subsidiary in Kuala Lumpur) or through intermediaries.. However, the 2007 law made it clear that none of these remedies would allow companies to bypass justice.
According to the 2007 French law, conviction for bribery is subject to up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 150 million euros. |
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