Asia Sentinel

An alleged kidnapping complicates the life of the Malaysian premier, UMNO and the country's royalty

It may well have been Najib Tun Razak's worst nightmare. On his first state trip abroad, Malaysia's new prime minister had gone to Indonesia to discuss such weighty matters as bilateral cooperation on energy, trade, defense, agriculture and the thousands of illegal Indonesian migrants that Malaysia has been trying to send home.

Instead, Najib was beseiged at a joint press conference with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with a story that has been burning up the newspapers, wires, gossip magazines, the internet and jungle telegraph. Legions of reporters from both Malaysia and Indonesia demanded to know what he knew about the alleged kidnapping of a beautiful Indonesian-American model, Manohara Odelia Pinot and when he knew it. Najib was forced to answer that he had no comment.

At about the same time he was meeting with Yudhoyono, Daisy Fajarina, the mother of the missing model, held a hysterical press conference at the National Comission on Violence Against Women in Jakarta to sob that Malaysian authorities had stopped her from visiting the country to check on her daughter's condition, and to say that Manohara had met Tengku Temenggong Muhammad Fakhry, the Kelantan* crown prince, at a gala dinner in Kuala Lumpur put on by Najib when Manohara was only 14. Then she fainted.

To Malaysia's indefatigable bloggers, that has called up more than two years of allegations that Najib, as deputy prime minister, had been involved in the gruesome murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a then-28-year Mongolian translator and jilted lover of his best friend, political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda. Like Altantuya, Manohara was a jet-setting beauty, rated one of Indonesia's 100 most precious women by Harper's Bazaar Magazine at the age of 15.

Although Baginda was freed earlier this year by a high court under questionable circumstances, two of Najib's bodyguards were sentenced to death last month for the slaying, for which one of the two said they had been promised RM50,000 to RTM100,000. In a cautioned statement, the convicted murderer also said it was Mohd Musa Safri, Najib's chief of staff, who sent them to pick up Altantuya and two of her friends. No attempt was made in court to ask who had offered to pay the two policemen to kill her.

The murder suggested the involvement of higher authorities. Evidence that Altantuya and her two companions had ever entered the country had disappeared, according to testimony at the trial of the killers. No attempt was made by the prosecution, the defense or the judge to ask why. One of Altantuya's friends also testified that she had seen photographs of Baginda, the then-deputy prime minister and Altantuya together. Both the prosecution and the defense leapt to their feet to ask that the comment be stricken from the record.

Comments (9)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form

Write comment

Name

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment