Friday, September 07, 2012

Malaysia's ruling party UMNO goes after a whistleblower...

In November of 2009, Suaram, the Kuala Lumpur-based human rights NGO, asked a French investigative law firm to look into what appeared to be huge bribes and kickbacks paid to Malaysian politicians by the French state-owned defense company DCN and its subsidiaries for the 2002 purchase of two submarines and the lease of a third.

The story was complicated by the sensational 2006 death of a Mongolian translator and party girl, Altantuya Shaariibuu, who was shot by two of then-Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak’s bodyguards and her body was blown up with military explosives. While the bodyguards were convicted of her for-hire killing, the court appeared to have actively suppressed any mention of who allegedly paid the two to kill her, raising Suaram’s concerns that there would be no justice delivered.

In the intervening three years, Suaram’s request to the law firm, headed by the Paris-based William Bourdon, resulted in a probe that exposed nearly 150 million euros in questionable funds paid to a close friend of Najib Tun Razak, now Malaysia’s prime minister.

 Eventually, when a Paris-based investigating magistrate began to examine the evidence, the court turned up voluminous memos, emails and other documents from a raid on DCN’s offices indicating that massive bribes had been paid with the full knowledge of Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, Mahathir Mohamad, then the prime minister of Malaysia, and Najib, who had negotiated the purchase. The evidence detailed a host of other sleazy dealings. Full story...

Related posts:
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  2. Sensational Malaysian submarine scandal resurfaces...
  3. Malaysian prime minister's wife Rosmah in scandals galore...
  4. Altantuya Shaaribuu murder in Malaysia: the truth at last?
  5. WikiLeaks and Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu's murder in Malaysia...
  6. Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Malaysian murder that just won't go away...
  7. Two Malaysian cops get death sentence for Altantuya Shaariibuu murder...
  8. Sordid sex-murder affair in Malaysia: who killed Altantuya Shaariibuu?
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  10. Malaysian politicians, sex and porn scandals...

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