Sabah Copycats - Circus In Town

Hantu Laut

The circus is in town.The clowns had a field day entertaining the Daily Express to a round of slapsticks and horse shits.

The front page headline screamed "Anti-Musa, anti Shafie group"

"What a waste of premium space for a group of unheard of political stragglers" said the news vendor whom I get my daily from.

We are against Musa Aman and Shafie Apdal's leadership but we support the federal leadership and we want a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to discuss this issue.

Leading these "Save Sabah" bunch of court jesters was out of the wood work Movement for Change Sabah chief, Abdul Razak Salam, the son of Datu Abdul Salam, brother of the late Tun Mustapha Harun, the controversial and most colourful chief minister Sabah ever had. Two Grumman executive jets and one customised Boeing 707 for his personal use.His playgrounds, the casinos of Beirut and London.

Gun-toting Salam was no less controversial when he pointed his gun and threatened the receivers who came to foreclose his Dashrun Hotel in Kuala Lumpur during the Mustapha's era.The receivers had no choice but to back off and lodged a police report but no charge was ever brought against Salam.

“We hope to change the system of cronyism that is prevalent in our political system. We will not be accepting funds from anybody who wishes to control us" said another MoCS joker.

Obviously, they must be loaded with money, not needing any financial help from anyone.

“We want to change the mentality of fear and intimidation that the government uses to turn its people to be subservient to them.”

Sabah has changed government 4 times since the formation of Malaysia which shows we are not easily intimidated or live in fear of the government except in the early days of USNO where political dissent assumed as terrorists would end up in Kepayan (Sabah version of Guantanamo Bay those days)

These are the very same people who joined Yong Teck Lee in the Batu Sapi by-election in October 2010 and promised him heaven and hell to deliver the bumiputra or rather the migrant's votes to him.

Yong lost his balls and the Batu Sapi debacle would make life harder for him in the next general elections.He would be fighting an uphill battle against DAP for the Chinese seats in Sabah.

Musa is a state leader and chief minister and Shafie is a national leader and a federal minister and both are members of UMNO supreme council.

Musa may not be the best of the bests but he knows best the business of development.Shafie is shrewd but not yet proven other than being very close to Najib and given a huge coffer for rural development.Money, would definitely buy favours, at least in Sabah, it does.

MoC Sarawak candidate Salleh Jaffarudin got skunked in the Sarawak elections and these Sabah copycats were already counting their eggs and given VIP treatment and front page headline from the papers that know Sabah best.

Story here.

Wikileaks,Pak Lah, Najib And The Altantuya Murder

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Asia Sentinel

Cables show the US embassy in KL feared "prosecutorial misconduct" during the sensational 2009 trial.

The US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur closely followed the trial of the accused killers of Mongolian interpreter Altantuya Shaariibuu and frequently discussed whether current Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was involved in the killing, according to diplomatic cables supplied to Asia Sentinel by the WikiLeaks website.

The diplomats, like much of the public, also speculated that the trial was being deliberately delayed and feared what one cable calls "prosecutorial misconduct" that was being politically manipulated. The embassy officials based their concerns on sources within the prosecution, government and the political opposition.

The cables also draw attention to an intriguing allegation that then Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi may have attempted to use the proceedings to implicate Najib, a claim that was quickly hushed up in the Malaysian press.

Altantuya was murdered in October 2006 by two of Najib's bodyguards, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 30 and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, 35. who stood trial and were pronounced guilty in April 2009. Abdul Razak Baginda, one of Najib's best friends and Altantuya's lover, was accused of participating in the murder but was freed without having to put on a defense.

The murder has been tied closely to the US$1 billion acquisition of French submarines by the Malaysian ministry of defense, which Najib headed as defense minister during the acquisitions. Altantuya reportedly acted as a translator on the transaction, which netted Razak Baginda's company a €114 million "commission" on the purchase. Reportedly she had been offered US$500,000 for her part in translating. After she was jilted, she vainly demanded payment. A letter she had written was made public after her death saying she regretted attempting to "blackmail" Razak Baginda.

French lawyers are investigating whether some of the €114 million was kicked back to French or Malaysian politicians. Despite the scandal, the US government has not publicly backed away from Najib. In April 2010, Najib visited the White House and was praised by President Barack Obama for the parliament's passage of an act allowing Malaysian authorities to take action against individuals and entities engaged in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The cables are replete with accounts of a long series of meetings with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who repeatedly told the Americans that Najib was connected to corrupt practices in the acquisition of the submarines as well as the purchase of Sukhoi Su-MCM-30 Flanker fighter jets from Russia. Anwar also called attention to Najib's connection to the Altantuya case.

A Jan. 24, 2007 cable, marked "secret," wrote that "Perceived irregularities on the part of prosecutors and the court, and the alleged destruction of some evidence, suggested to many that the case was subject to strong political pressure intended to protect Najib."

In a Feb. 1, 2008 cable, the embassy's Political Section Chief, Mark D. Clark, wrote that a deputy prosecutor had told him "there was almost no chance of winning guilty verdicts in the on-going trial of defendants Razak Baginda, a close advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, and two police officers. She described the trial as interminably long." (That, of course, turned out to be wrong. Sirul and Azilah were ultimately convicted and have appealed their sentence)

Clark called the trial a "a prosecutorial embarrassment from its inception, leading many to speculate that the ineptitude was by design. On the eve of the trial,Malaysia's Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail dropped his lead prosecutors and replaced them with less experienced attorneys. Similarly, a lead counsel for one of the defendants abruptly resigned before the trial 'because of (political) attempts to interfere with a defense he had proposed, in particular to protect an unnamed third party.'"

The protracted nature of the case, Clark continued, led "at least one regional newspaper to speculate that 'the case is being deliberately delayed to drive it from public view. Malaysia's daily newspapers rarely mention the case's latest developments, and it is unprecedented in Malaysian judicial history that a murder trial could drag on for seven months and still not give the defense an opportunity to present its case. Such an environment has led many to conclude that the case was too politically sensitive to yield a verdict before the anticipated general elections."

A January 2007 cable called attention to Razak Baginda's affidavit confirming that he sought the help of Musa Safri, later identified by reporters as Najib's aide-de-camp, in ridding him of the jilted woman, and in other cables pointed out that Musa had never been called for questioning.

In another cable, dated May 16, 2007, Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, a deputy home affairs minister in former Prime Minister Ahmad Abdullah Badawi's cabinet told US Embassy officials that he was "certain that government prosecutors would limit their trial activities to the murder itself and the three defendants; prosecutors would not follow up on allegations of related corruption or other suspects."

In a Jan. 27, 2007 cable, marked "Secret," embassy officials wrote that "In December we heard from one of (Anwar's) lawyers that Razak Baginda's wife was in contact with Anwar and Wan Azizah, suggesting one possible source for Anwar's information."

Razak Baginda's wife, during one of his first appearances in court, screamed that her husband "doesn't want to be prime minister." That was taken by observers as a reference to the fact that Najib reportedly had been having an affair with Altantuya but passed her on to Razak Baginda because it would be unseemly to have a mistress when he succeeded Abdullah Badawi as premier. Najib has offered to swear on the Koran that he had never met the woman.

However, in July 2008, P Balasubramaniam, a former policeman and private detective who had been hired by Razak Baginda to protect him from Altantuya, filed a sworn statement saying he had been told by the accused man that Najib not only knew the murdered woman but had an affair with her and introduced her to him, passing her on because he did not want the onus of having a mistress in the event that he would become prime minister.

In a telephone interview on May 9, Anwar, however, told Asia Sentinel that Razak Baginda's wife was not the source of his knowledge of Najib's connection and that instead he had been told of the connection by Setev Shaariibuu, Altantuya's father, who said he had wished to present evidence of Najib's involvement, but was not allowed to do so. Multiple attempts to contact Setev by Asia Sentinel have been unsuccessful.

Almost immediately after he made the statement, Balasubramaniam was picked up and driven to a police station, where he was forced to withdraw the statement and write a new one saying Razak Baginda had told him nothing of the sort. Balasubramaniam fled Malaysia for India. He later said Najib's brother, Nizam, and wife, Rosmah Mansor, had met with him and that he was offered RM5 million (US$1.48 million) to forget his statement connecting Najib to Altantuya. Balasubramaniam displayed a flock of checks drawn on the account of an associate of Najib's wife. The former private detective has made a a series of statements from outside the country about Najib's involvement.

A February 2008 cable from Political Section Chief Clark gives a hint that Abdullah Badawi himself may have been trying to get rid of Najib by forcing Razak Baginda to implicate him in the murder.

"In the latest turn of the ongoing Altantuya murder trial (reftels), accused political insider Abdul Razak Baginda, who has remained calm and composed through most of the proceedings, unleashed an emotional tirade shortly after the February 20 noon recess on the trial's 90th day," Clark wrote. "Referring to the Prime Minister by his nick-name 'Pak Lah,' Razak reportedly exclaimed: 'You can die, Pak Lah! (in Malaysian - Matilah kau, Pak Lah!) I'm innocent!' according to unpublished journalist accounts. Read more.

The Commonality Of Anwar And Strauss-Kahn

Hantu Laut

Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be innocent or guilty as sin. Tales of the powerful and privileged appetite for sexual indiscretions.His case has in every aspect in commonality with Anwar's. It is about sexual indiscretion, lies, arrogance and abuse of power. Though, there is one huge difference between him and Anwar, he readily submits himself to body examination for DNA.

Anwar refused to give DNA sample and made mockery of the judge, the witnesses, the prosecution and the justice system and turned a criminal case into the longest political circus and with it political mileage to his and the opposition advantage.

Since a law compelling suspect to give DNA sample was non existence at that time, he got away with it.He should have, if he is truly innocence, voluntarily given a specimen of his DNA, which would have made life easier for him, the court, the defence and prosecution and would have shorten the case thereby saving court's time and tax payer's money. The police had to used stealthy method to get specimen of his DNA, which has now been found to match those found in the complainant's anus.

The judge has concluded a prima facie case and called for Anwar's defence. He accused the judge of "prejudging his guilt" even before he entered his defence.

To Anwar everything is a political dish for public consumption, the law is of no consequence.

There are many similarities in the two cases.

Many deemed Anwar innocent and victim of a frame up and political persecution. Many Malaysians are still spellbound that he is completely innocent and can do no wrong.

In the case of Kahn the allegation of sexual molestation and attempted rape shocked the French nation and many do not believe he is capable if such heinous behaviour and speculation of possible fixing of his wagon is in the air.Like Anwar's, his wife also stood by his innocence in spite of his wily reputation as the "great seducer" and history of infidelities.

They are classic examples of stand by your man no matter what.Wives from heaven or wayang kulit? Sometimes, power and money can turn a blind eye.

The great synonymity of the two cases are........... though Kahn has not officially confirmed it but seen as the best contender for the top job, both men are gunning for the chief executive positions of their respective country.

Both, might not get to their destinations, because of their own undoing.

Sex, lies and the reckless choices of the powerful

Hantu Laut

Don't ever think such people are infallible. They can be as monstrous as the low-life.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sex and power are no strangers. History is littered with tales of the powerful and privileged felled by sex scandals.

But make no mistake. If IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is found guilty as charged of attempting to rape a hotel maid in New York City, he would be in a league virtually of his own.

Few have been accused of a violent crime like Strauss-Kahn. The world financier and French presidential hopeful was charged on Sunday with criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment and attempted rape in New York City after a hotel maid said she was assaulted.

"Politics and power and sexual harassment certainly have a long history," said Michele Swers, associate professor of government at Georgetown University. "This being an attempted criminal rape is, I think, of an order of a different magnitude."

There is no shortage of powerful leaders who fell from grace for affairs, prostitutes and groping. Sexual indiscretions have weakened governments and buried political careers on both sides of the Atlantic, today and in ages past.

Among the most famous is the Profumo scandal in 1963 in which a British war secretary was forced to resign because he had an affair with a prostitute linked to a Russian spy.

The Strauss-Kahn case raises some of the same questions that surface in any scandal where politics and sex intersect. Did the accused abuse power to engage in high-risk behavior, and did power make him feel invincible, above the law?

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and 2012 presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich are just a few of the powerful who have faced that kind of scrutiny, although none had to answer to charges of violent crime.

"Power is an aphrodisiac, as is well known, and we know as well that power in one sense is often presumed to be power in another sense," said James Walston, professor of Italian politics at the American University of Rome.

"So a person who is head of the IMF might think he can get away with anything. Certainly Berlusconi appears to think that way."

Berlusconi, 74, a towering figure of Italy's center right, is facing four concurrent trials for corruption, tax fraud and, most sensationally, sex with an underage prostitute and then using his office to cover it up. The sex charge followed years of rumors of his sexual misbehavior.

Strauss-Kahn is no stranger to these questions. In 2008, he was investigated by the IMF over possible abuse of power over a brief affair with an economist at the Fund who was his subordinate. The affair was consensual and he was cleared, but he apologized publicly for "a serious error of judgment.

France, like Italy, traditionally is quite tolerant of extra-marital affairs, unlike the United States. The out-of-wedlock daughter of former President Francois Mitterand attended his funeral. This time though, French politicians and the public were shocked. The charges "struck like a thunderbolt," in the words of the leader of the Socialist Party to which Strauss-Kahn belonged.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, is due to appear in court later on Sunday and his wife, a successful French media personality, has said she has "no doubt his innocence will be re-established."

'EGOTISM, NARCISSISM'

It is rare for a politician to go to jail for a sex crime. Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was sentenced in March to seven years in prison for rape when he was a Cabinet minister in the late 1990s. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it showed "no person is above the law."

One pattern psychologists detect in top politicians is a readiness to engage in an extreme amount of risk-taking, said Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, In the Strauss-Kahn case, if true, Farley said a crime would be "exceptionally risky."

"Risk-taking is one of the essential ingredients in highly successful or leading public figures and politicians," said Farley. "Strauss-Kahn (case) fits that bill."

Clinton also fits the profile. He came from modest means, faced many ups and downs in his political path to the presidency, only to risk all when he had an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky in the White House.

Adulation awarded to high-fliers can also contribute.

"You have people who are committed supporters around you and they don't want to see anything bad happen to you in terms of career, so there will always be people who are willing to then cover it up," said Swers.

John Edwards, a U.S. Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008, squandered his promising career by having an affair with a woman on his campaign, while his wife battled cancer. Elizabeth Edwards has since died.

Edwards blamed his meteoric rise in presidential politics and the fawning that came with it.

All that "fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences," Edwards told ABC News in 2008. He later admitted he had fathered the woman's child.Read more.

Also read:

Sexual Perversion:Wolf In Sheep Clothing