by Maclean Patrick,
Wong Choon Mei
Prime Minister Najib Razak, despite splurging several dozen
millions of taxpayers' money hiring Tony Blair's former media team to remake
his somewhat shady image into a 'Mr Cool', may soon find himself melting in the
sweltering heat of the French open courts.
"The Ops Scorpene dinner talk at Holborn Uni went really
well. Lawyer Joseph Breham announced that the instruction judge is on the verge
of being appointed," Suaram director Cynthia Gabriel said on Twitter at
end of the Sept 30 fundraiser in London that was closely followed back home.
"Mr Cool is going to face the heat very soon! Ops
Scorpene's legal briefing in Holborn was told that the case will open very soon
in France."
No, Breham did not disppoint those who came to get the latest
update on how the probe against French arms giant DCN was getting on. According
to Cynthia, the legal briefing was streamed live and avidly followed by
Malaysians in Australia despite it being at an "unearthly hour for
them".
Suaram had in 2010 filed a complaint in Paris against DCN,
accusing it of paying kickbacks to Malaysian officials including Najib to
secure the deal. It has held several dinner talks to raise the legal fees
needed to bring the case to open court.
Inquisitorial
system
And now, the stage is finally set and the grand drama
involving DCN, Najib, his close friend Razak Baginda and the beautiful but
tragic Altantuya Shaariibuu about to begin.
The Parisian courts would obviously follow the French legal
system which is different from the Malaysian one that is based on the British
legal code. In France, an instructional judge or an investigating judge is part
of the inquisitorial system that France practices in its courts of law.
This is a legal system where the court or a part of the court
is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, as opposed to an
adversarial system where the role of the court is primarily that of an
impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense. Inquisitorial
systems are used in some countries with civil legal systems as opposed to
common law systems.
The main feature of the
inquisitorial system in criminal justice in France and other countries
functioning along the same lines is the function of the examining or
investigating judge (juge d'instruction). The
examining judge conducts investigations into serious crimes or complex
enquiries. As members of the judiciary, they are independent and outside the
province of the executive branch, and therefore separate from the Office of
Public Prosecutions which is supervised by the Minister of Justice.
An investigating judge holds
great authority in the search for evidence. The judge questions witnesses,
interrogates suspects, and orders searches for other investigations. The
examining judge's goal is not to prosecute the accused, but to gather facts,
and as such their duty is to look for any and all evidence (à
charge et à décharge), incriminating or exculpatory.
Such a system of independent examination will no doubt
trouble Najib. He already has to contend with going into an election year with
declining popularity points, a divided UMNO party as well as being on the
receiving end of a 'nosy' judge in France over a bombshell of a corruption case
with murder thrown in to boot!
Abusing
the Malaysian system
With such burdens to bear, it is small wonder that
influential former premier Mahathir Mohamad has restated his earlier claim that
if snap elections were to be held now - which pundits take to mean the November
date that is being widely touted around town - the UMNO-led BN coalitionwill
lose GE-13.Although, Mahathir did not mention the ongoing Scorpenes probe, the
Altantuya muder case nor the Sodomy II trial in which Najib and wife Rosmah
Mansor are also implicated, he made it obvious that Najib has become a liability
to UMNO and BN.
Despite Mahathir's misgivings, Najib probably reckons he can
control the news flow and clean up after the bad publicity. For sure, he can
influence the Altantuya and Sodomy II cases in Malaysia, but he cannot do
anything about the Scorpenes because that probe is in France and way out of his
reach. And this is why he is such a walking time-bomb for his party, even
though he refuses to admit it.
Sodomy II relates to the accusation that he had conspired
with Anwar Ibrahim's former aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan to frame the Opposition
Leader for sodomy, which is illegal in Malaysia, for the purpose of derailing
his arch enemy's political comeback. Indeed, all eyes are now on how the
Malaysian court will rule in his application to set aside a subpoena for
himself and Rosmah to appears as witnessnes in the trial.
Indeed, it is hard to see how the Kuala Lumpur High Court can
rule that Najib is not a relevant since he had met Saiful and even advised him
to lodge a police complaint against Anwar two days before Saiful claimed he was
again sodomised,. As Anwar's counsel has said, Najib can shed light on Saiful's
mental state and his testimony would be crucial for Anwar's defense. But
then the lines separating the judiciarry from the executive in Malaysia are
very much blurred compared to France.
The same goes for the Altantuya murder. The 28-year-old
Mongolian translator travelled widely with Baginda during his negotiations with
DCN in the early 2000s, and it has been alleged that Najib, who as the Defense
minister in 2002 had sanctioned the submarines purchase, had also travelled
with them. Altantuya was murdered by two of Najib's former bodyguards in 2006.
Her parents filed a RM100 million lawsuit against the Malaysian government in
2007, while the bodyguards have appealed their 2009 death sentence.
However, both cases remain mysteriously submerged despite
countless queries in Parliament as to their status. One excuse after another
has been offered by the Attorney General's chambers as well as the Chief
Justice, but few in Malaysia are fooled by the delay. They see a sinister hand
of intereference in both cases and it is a fair and easy guess whose hand it is
that might be pulling the strings behind the scenes.
But
France is out of Najib's reach
But in France, apart from establishing if DCN had really
bribed Najib and other Malaysian officials to seal the deal, the Scorpenes
hearing is likely to rake up a lot of details that would shed light on the
Altantuya murder. This could pave the way for her murder case to be re-opene
Additionally, and this significance is only just beginning to
dawn on corporate Malaysia, is how impactful the Scorpenes hearing will be.
The huge web of corruption and illicit wheeling and dealing
amongst firms connected to the procurement of arms by the Defense ministry is
bound to be unravelled. Many corporate bigwigs sitting on these Defense-linked
firms, and also holding positions in other major companies, will be implicated.
It is a cinch that an entire chain reaction will be set off
that could shake the business sector and force a revamp in the way the BN
government has erstwhile intertwined politics with big-time business.
No wonder Mahathir is sure that his UMNO will "lose
big" if elections are held soon!
Source : MC
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