SHAH ALAM (Oct 11): Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has denied in open court that he had ever met murdered Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu or that he was involved in her murder, refuting claims made by former attorney general Tommy Thomas in his memoir My Story: Justice in the Wilderness.
“I have said this on record and on religious oath numerous times,” Najib said when testifying at the High Court here in a defamation suit he has brought against Thomas and the publisher GB Gerakbudaya Enterprise Sdn Bhd for the allegation.
Najib also denied that he had ordered for her to be killed.
“[The allegation that] I had purportedly told (then chief inspector) Azilah Hadri to eliminate Altantuya. This specific opinion expressed was inaccurate and calculated to mislead readers that the evidence from the two (Special Forces Unit officers found guilty of Altantuya’s murder) corroborated each other and that my purported involvement was proven,” he said.
As such, Thomas’ claims in Chapter 42 of the memoir were “hearsay and inadmissible”.
Najib said that though the content of the memoir was defamatory, yet it was still published, which Najib claims was reckless.
In the Oct 18, 2006 murder, Altantuya was shot, and then her body was blown up with explosives at a remote location in Puncak Alam, Selangor.
“In my opinion, there was an act of recklessness and defamation in respect of me and my family,” he said during examination-in-chief by his lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.
Tommy Thomas’ lawyer, Alan Adrian Gomez, objected to this, stating that the memoir did not defame Najib’s family.
Najib said that Thomas had stated that when he vacated office, the review of Azilah's conviction and death sentence at the Federal Court was to be held on Dec 8, 2020. The book had been published in January 2021, by which time Azilah’s death sentence was already known.
Najib claimed that there was no attempt to correct this fact or update the memoir, and hence, the book did not reflect facts in an accurate manner.
Meanwhile, Najib also informed the court that he was acquainted with Abdul Razak Baginda, a defence analyst that had been involved in a transaction to purchase two French submarines (and for whom Altantuya had been acting as a translator in the negotiation process).
Najib stated that he knew from news reports that she was an interpreter and learned that Razak and Altantuya had a romantic relationship.
“Azilah’s statutory declaration (SD) was made without any factual basis,” Najib said.
“No source was revealed in Azilah’s affidavit. My integrity and reputation has been tarnished with baseless accusations such as that in the impugned passages (in Chapter 42),” he added.
On Thursday (Oct 10), a Federal Court review of Azilah’s death sentence commuted it to 40 years’ imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane.
For the review application, Azilah had submitted a support letter from Altantuya’s father, Dr Shaariibuu Setev, and re-submitted a previous statutory declaration, in which he claims that he had only been acting under orders from (then deputy prime minister) Najib and Azilah’s superior, Deputy Superintendent Musa Safri, to kill Altantuya.
In its decision, the Federal Court bench noted that neither Shaariibuu’s support letter, nor Azilah’s SD had been opposed by the prosecution.
This is the second suit filed by the former Pekan Member of Parliament, as he had also filed another suit against Thomas and the government for malicious prosecution in relation to the charges he is facing in relation to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
For this most recent suit, Najib is seeking general, aggravated, punitive, and exemplary damages, along with an unqualified apology in three major media outlets.
He is also seeking an injunction to restrain the defendants from publishing similar related defamatory statements, and also for the removal of the impugned passages from the book.
In addition to Gomez, Thomas was represented by Mervin Lai Wei Shiung.
The next hearing before High Court judge Datuk Khadijah Idris is set for July 30 next year.