FORMER political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, who was charged with abetment in the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu and is now being investigated over the Scorpene submarine scandal, said in a radio interview that he has “moved on”.
“You know at this stage of my life, I don’t really care. I don’t really give a toss about all this, simply because it’s in the hands of my lawyers,” he told BFM in an interview to promote his newly established think-tank ICON Centre for Global Affairs.
Razak was asked by radio host Melisa Idris to comment on the “court of public opinion” about him.
“I know what I did and didn’t do. Let me put it this way, I hope I can summarise this, even if I’m the first Malaysian to win a Nobel prize, 90% of the news item would be the murder case, the submarine deal.
“And the last sentence would be ‘oh by the way, Razak just won the Nobel peace prize’. Even I stand on top of the mountain and shout this and that, it’s not going to matter because people have made up their minds,” he said.
Razak was charged with abetting two police officers, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, in the murder of Altantuya in 2006. He was acquitted while Azilah and Sirul were sentenced to death.
In August, the French government announced that it has launched an investigation against Razak for “active and passive complicity in corruption” and “misappropriation of corporate assets”, in relation to the sale of Scorpene submarines to Malaysia.
“Honestly, about the public opinion, I don’t really give a toss at this stage in my life.
“I’m just someone who wants to move on with life. And if anybody wants to remind me of my past, by all means, but I will leave you behind and I will move forward. If the public wants to drag me back to my past, do your best, because I’m moving forward.”
“There’s been a lot of conjecture, rumours, speculation and we know that because there was a complaint and the system is such that when there is a complaint, the system goes into motion,” Razak told BFM yesterday.
“Being placed under formal investigation means that my lawyers will have full access to all the investigation papers. And we saw, at least when my lawyers saw the investigation papers, we knew, as we’ve known all along, that they have no evidence whatsoever,” he said.
The French inquiry is on alleged corruption in the purchase of the Scorpene submarines in 2002. Razak was an adviser to Prime Minister Najib Razak when the latter was defence minister between 2000 and 2008.
Najib oversaw the deal, worth nearly €1 billion (RM5 billion), to buy two Scorpene-class submarines and one Agosta-class submarine from French naval dockyards unit DCNS, which is linked to French defence group Thales.
Razak had reportedly received some €30 million in consultancy fees, paid in phases over a decade as the submarines were constructed by DCNS and Navantia of Spain and later delivered to Malaysia.
He told BFM that the fees were legal and nothing out of the ordinary for his work.
“It’s very simple. You speak to any consultant, you speak to any bank, you speak to any financial institution.
“When you do a deal, whether it is to raise funds, whether you are a financial institution or whether you are a consultant, everything is first, based on negotiations whether it is with a client.
“Number two, it’s all based on the scope of work and finally the reward. But a lot of people do not know lots of things. So they make a lot of assumptions.
“It was very much in line with the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) ruling. This was not a Mickey Mouse company, for heaven’s sake. They have their own financial mechanism to ensure that everything was above board. Invoice and reports.”
The Malaysian government has said the contract was free from corruption.
French investigators are also looking into allegations that €114 million was paid to a purported Malaysia-based shell company, Perimekar, as part of the deal.
That company was controlled, at the time, by Razak’s wife.
Since the investigation began, four French defence industry executives have been charged.
In August 2013, the Court of Appeal overturned the Azilah and Sirul’s conviction for shooting and blowing up Altantuya, who also served as an interpreter for Razak.
In January 2015, the Federal Court restored the conviction and death sentence against Azilah and Sirul. An arrest warrant was subsequently issued for Sirul, who is residing in Australia.
Civil society groups have charged that Altantuya’s killing was connected to her association with Razak in the purchase of two Scorpene-class submarines from French shipbuilding giant DCNS in 2002. – November 23, 2017.
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Posted 6 years ago by Noureddine Kassem · Reply
Above all, his display of intransigent stand of non-repentant and callous attitude towards the dastardly barbaric murder of a fellow human being (conventionally regarded as the weaker sex) whom he befriended (and probably romanced with too!) renders his so-called elitist effort to resurrect himself (as some fanciful but dubious wannabe "think-tank"!) is just simply devoid of any human decency and also smacks of some intellectual morons of the lowest order.
A pious Muslim intellectual could have never had that audacity to emulate him, could s'he? You bet!
Posted 6 years ago by Musang Wang · Reply
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