Ariff advises Pak Lah to stay out of Altantuya case

Raub MP tells why Umno fearful of losing power: Pakatan will expose secrets.

KUALA LUMPUR: Raub MP Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz has made a broad threat about exposing the secrets behind the controversial purchase of two French-built submarines, which has been linked to the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu eight years ago.

“We will dig out the story when we come to power,” said Ariff, a former Umno member and one-time Najib Razak aide who joined the DAP in 2012. “Now you know why Umno is fearful of losing power.”

He said a new Pakatan Rakyat-led federal government could also reopen the Altantuya case and order a fresh trial to settle outstanding issues.

In a blog article on Friday, Ariff related political gossip that even Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was a “beneficiary of the spoils” of the submarine purchase, but made clear he was only recounting hearsay. “I don’t know about this – people tell me this,” he said.

He warned Abdullah against joining the fight to reopen the Altantuya murder case. Abdullah had said earlier that Najib did not know Altantuya. “People can be rude by asking, what does Pak Lah know?” Ariff said, before advising Abdullah not to get involved.

“Pak Lah is better off staying out of this fight, lest people start digging what he got when Najib took over as PM,” he said. Najib succeeded Abdullah as prime minister in 2009, a year after Barisan Nasional suffered humiliating losses to Pakatan Rakyat in the general election the previous year.

Ariff joined the chorus of opposition cries for a new trial into the Altantuya case, in which Najib, his wife Rosmah Mansor, and a Najib associate, Abdul Razak Baginda, have been implicated.

He dismissed Najib’s lack of a clear answer when asked in a television interview on Thursday about his connection to Altantuya, in the face of widespread political gossip that he had had a relationship with the victim through Razak.

Ariff said Najib had not answered the question. He merely responded by telling the interviewer that he had taken an Islamic oath in a mosque that he did not know Altantuya.

“I think the answer was meant more for the folks in the villages and in the Malay heartland,” said Ariff and ridiculed the prime minister. “If Najib can prove his innocence by way of making the solemn oath, then anyone accused of any crime can avoid going before the civil courts by doing the same. Many wrongdoers will get away easily.”

The best way to solve the issue once and for all was a retrial, he said. “Bring in Musa Safri (a former aide to Najib at the time of the murder and who was implicated but never called to testify), Razak Baginda and others, investigation officers and everyone connected to the brutal slaying.” He said some evidence could be introduced, as well as people never called to testify, and the two policemen eventually convicted and sentenced to death for killing Altantuya.

“The retrial can be done – if we have a new government, a properly constituted court,” he said.

One of the two convicted killers, Sirul Azhar Umar, has said that he and co-accused Azilah Hadri were only carrying out orders and had been made the scapegoats while the people responsible got away. Sirul is now being held in an Australian immigration detention centre after he fled there while awaiting a court decision.

His pleas have been taken up by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad who has called for the case to be reopened and for Najib to answer whether he knew Altantuya.