FORMER defence analyst Abdul Razak Baginda wanted to have a son with Altantuya Shaariibuu as he only had a daughter and his wife was too old to bear him more children, the High Court was told today. 

Namiraa Gerelmaa testified that her cousin Altantuya told her in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur in October 2006 that Razak was “the man she was in love with”.

“She told me she met Razak in Hong Kong and they spent the night together. She also told me Razak introduced her to his lawyer and introduced her as his Mongolian wife,” Namiraa said, adding that Altantuya had said that Razak wanted to give her a portion of his property and assets. 

“To some extent, they were in a husband-wife relationship. He wanted a baby from her. She told me Razak wanted a child because he wanted a son as he had a grown-up daughter and the wife was too elderly. I could tell that the deceased (Altantuya) was very close to him.”

Namiraa testified that Altantuya had tried to contact him “many times” in vain before the two women travelled to Kuala Lumpur to seek him out.

“(Razak) did not respond. She (Altantuya) also left him many messages about her payment. Because she could not reach him, she had to come here to meet him.”

Altantuya’s friend, Uuriintuya Gal-Ochir had also travelled with the two women to Malaysia.

“We both asked her (Altantuya) ‘aren’t you scared to be involved in such a big deal?’ She said she was not scared because she was entitled to her payment.”

“She said if Razak Baginda was just going to use her and throw her away, she was not going to allow that.”

Namiraa said she never got to meet Razak during the trip and that the first time she saw him in person was when she was a witness at the murder trial of Altantuya over a decade ago. 

She reiterated that she had seen him in a photo shown to her by Altantuya during the trip to Kuala Lumpur, when they stayed at Malaya Hotel.  

The women attempted to enter Razak’s office several times over the next few days, she said, and they were later tailed and harassed by two of Razak’s men, Bala and Suras Kumar.

Namiraa said she was at the hotel the day Altantuya vanished allegedly after going to Razak’s residence. 

“She called at night and she said she was in front of Razak Baginda’s house and the line was cut off. I tried to call her after an hour. Then we approached the police and said our ‘sister’ is lost.”

Namiraa had left Malaysia to tend to her year-old child when it was discovered that  Altantuya had been “murdered brutally.”

Razak’s lawyer Manjit Singh Dhillon pointed to contradictory claims in the account filed by Namiraa in the murder trial over a decade ago and her witness statement today, in response to which Namiraa said the statements were inaccurate translations or that she misunderstood the questions.

Manjit next suggested that Altantuya’s claims of gifts from Razak and of her work with him were not entirely truthful.

“I put it to you that Altantuya has a habit of exaggerating things,” Manjit said during cross examination.

“We Mongolians say that the dead cannot speak,” Namiraa said, via an interpreter. 

“The living can. I put it to you that she had a habit of exaggerating things,” Manjit said. 

“I disagree,” Namiraa said. 

Manjit asked whether Altantuya mentioned a white gold watch, which was allegedly given to her from Razak.

“If she was alive, she would have shown me,” Namiraa said, to which Manjin replied, “Of course.”

“She told me she would show me when we went back to Mongolia,” Namiraa said. 

On whether she had asked the family about the watch after Altantuya’s death, Namiraa said she had not. 

“I put it to you that you are equally in the habit of exaggerating… a lot of evidence that you present in court,” he said, to which she disagreed. 

The hearing, before Justice Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, continues tomorrow. – January 30, 2019.