MISSING private investigator P. Balasubramaniam has broken his 15-month silence, claiming that Prime Minister Najib Razak’s younger brother, Nazim, met and threatened him into withdrawing his first statutory declaration.
Bala alleged that carpet businessman Deepak Jaikishan, an aide of the Prime Minister’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, instructed him to meet Nazim on the day he made public his statutory declaration.
He said the first statutory declaration in which he claimed that Najjib had a relationship with murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shariibuu, a lover of the Prime Minister’s associate Abdul Razak Baginda, was true.
But he withdrew it and signed a second declaration after he was taken to see Nazim at the Curve in Damansara on July 3 2008 when he was told by the Prime Minister’s architect brother to “follow instructions if he loves his family.”
According to Bala, the specific instruction to him was to withdraw the July 3rd statutory declaration and leave Malaysia immediately.
Hours after that meeting, Bala signed a second statutory declaration which was prepared for him and later issued to the media.
He and his family were then taken by road to Singapore before being flown to Thailand and and Nepal and eventually to India, where he has been hiding since.
Bala gave the startling account of the alleged threats made by Nazim in a tell all interview done overseas which concluded with him saying: “As a family man, I want to have a normal life. I want to put a stop to all this. ”
FreeMalaysiaToday was provided with excerpts of the interview done in the presence of three lawyers including Bala’s.
In the hour long interview, Bala gave an account of money allegedly promised by Deepak, whose orders Nazim told him to follow.
He claimed Deepak offered him a RM4 to RM5 million deal to sign the second statutory declaration retracting his allegation against Najib, and to remain overseas until Najib was installed as Prime Minister.
In the course of their conversations, Bala said Deepak related to him how he came to know Rosmah and even offered to arrange a breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister’s wife.
“(Deepak said) I can come back to Malaysia after Najib become the PM. (Also) he will make arrangements to have breakfast with Rosmah (for her to ) thank me ,” for retracting the first SD, Bala added.
However, no breakfast meeting took place with Rosmah, and Bala said he never received the RM5million sweetener promised to him.
Although Najib’s smooth ascension to power took place as scheduled in April this year, Bala saw little to suggest that he would be allowed to return to Malaysia to lead a normal life with his family.
Bala said Deepak gave him about RM750,000 in total to cover expenses for him and his family during their stay overseas. The money was mostly banked into his account with cheques issued by Carpet Raya Sdn Bhd, of which Deepak is a director.
Another revealation by Bala was his meeting with a Malaysian Police Special Branch team which tracked him to Bangkok in July last year.
Bala said the officer in charge of the Special Branch team, ASP Muniandy, asked him which of the two statutory declarations was true.
“ I told him the first SD was the true SD. Then he just shook my hand and said ‘You are really brave,’” Bala quoted Muniandy as saying.
He said the police team then proceeded to record a statement from him for nearly seven hours on the contents of the first statutory declaration and events leadings to the release of the document.
Given the circumstances of fear and continued harrassment against him and his family, Bala indicated he wanted to start his life afresh overseas with his family rather than returning to Malaysia as long as Najib and his people were in power.
Efforts to contact Nazim and Deepak were unsuccessful. Free Malaysia Today...
DESPITE stepping down in 2008 as executive director of Sisters in Islam (SIS) which she co-founded and led for two decades, Zainah Anwar has not retired from her commitment to women's rights and justice.
Currently project director of Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice for Muslim families, Zainah, 55, continues to travel the world to advance equal rights for Muslim women. On top of that, the daughter of one of Umno's founders is not one to stay quiet in the face of an injustice. The most recent example was when she lent support to Perlis Mufti Dr Mohd Azri Zainul Abidin following his arrest by the Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor.
A former journalist and one of the pioneering commissioners of the National Human Rights Commission or Suhakam, Zainah has also worked with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Still, she is most well-known for her work with SIS which has brought her and the organisation both acclaim and condemnation. The Nut Graph interviewed Zainah at the SIS office in Petaling Jaya on 22 Oct 2009, and traces the source of this activist's resilience.
TNG: Can you trace your ancestry?
Lithograph "Abyssinian Slaves Resting at Korti, Nubia" by David Roberts (all pics courtesy of Zainah Anwar)
Zainah Anwar: I love the story that my great grandmother was an Abyssinian slave whom my great grandfather bought, freed and married. He was an Islamic scholar from Muar who moved back and forth between Mecca and Muar. He brought his Abyssinian wife back to Johor to settle. Supposedly there were quite a few Abyssinians who were brought to Pahang and Johor during that period when religious scholars travelled between Mecca and the Malay states.
My great grandfather and his Abyssinian wife had only one child, who was my father's father. My father was born in 1898 in Muar and he died two months short of his 100th birthday.
My mum was born in Johor Baru. Her side is Malay but I'm not sure about the mix. There might be some Chinese and Indonesian blood.
What are some of the family stories or aspects of your childhood that were formative of who you are today?
With siblings Ahmad Zaki, now an artist, and Zarinah (right), now chairperson of the Securities Commission
Our family is a story of mixed races. I'm very proud of the fact that we have different bloods in us. There's Malay, Minang, Javanese, Abyssinian, Arab, Chinese and also one extinct race, according to my father. I grew up embracing the pluralism of Malaysian society. I had neighbours who were Malay, Chinese and Indian [Malaysians]. I went to a school that had all races and my closest friends include all races, from young until today. I went to an English school, the Sultan Ibrahim Girls' School where I had a cosmopolitan and liberal education.
My father, (corrected) Tan Sri Anwar Abdul Molek, even though he was socially conservative, was intellectually very liberal. He was part of the Kaum Muda in Johor. He believed in religious reform, was critical of the ulamak and he was against closed-mindedness. He spoke English fluently and was an avid reader. We had subscriptions to Life magazine, the Readers' Digest, three newspapers a day — which were the Utusan Melayu, the Jawi version then, Straits Times, and The Malay Mail. We also had a subscription to Dewan Masyarakat.
So in terms of trying to explain why I am open minded, it's because I grew up in that kind of environment. Books, newspapers, magazines laid all over the house. Breakfast, lunch and dinner could only be served after the BBC world news at 8am, 1pm and 8pm were over. My father had two shortwave radios, one upstairs and one downstairs to listen to world news.
When were you born and what were some of the exciting times you lived through?
I was born in 1954 into a very political household. My father was a contemporary and political comrade of Datuk Onn Jaafar; so politics was very much in our family. My father took part in local elections but lost in the Johor Baru municipal council elections on the Parti Negara ticket.
In my childhood, all kinds of people came to our house, my father's old political comrades and his Malay, Chinese and Indian friends and others who came for help. Our front door was always open and people just came and went. After retirement in 1954, my father sat on many boards — all in a voluntary capacity. He would help the poor and needy irrespective of race.
Family photo, where Zainah is sitting on her father's lap (at the top of the stairs). Her mother (left) is holding her brother Ahmad Zaki. Sitting next to them is elder sister Zarinah. The two other girls in the photo are Zainah's half-sisters.
As a retired division one civil servant, people needed his signature for this or that government application, for aid, scholarship, or licence. He helped many poor Chinese and poor Malays get stalls when the new JB (Johor Baru) market opened. I remember the flower person, the chicken person and the vegetable person, who were all Chinese. Because my father helped them, whenever we went marketing they would not take money from us. My mother thought this was great! But my father was very strict and he would instruct us to pay or buy from another stall. But during Raya, they would send us live chicken, flowers and durian when it was in season.
I love the fact that my father's friends in Umno who later became rich in Kuala Lumpur would remark to me that they do not make men like him these days. He was a man of honour and integrity. The kind of man who would hand over the receipts of all our Raya purchases in Singapore to the Customs officer at the Causeway so that he could pay all the taxes! He was the chair[person] of the organising committee of the the Johor Baru Grand Prix and yet he would not give his children free tickets to watch. There was an invitation card for two persons and my mother would take one child per day to the grandstand, while the others joined neighbours and relatives on the grassy slopes.
Tell us about your father's links with Datuk Onn Jaafar.
He was private secretary to three of Johor's menteris besar, including Datuk Onn. My father was one of the six men who founded Umno.
Zainah's parents, Tan Sri Anwar Molek and Puan Sri Saodah Abdullah in the 1990s.
The British effort in 1946 to form the Malayan Union, which would have transferred Johor's sovereignty to the King of England, led to protests among the Johor Malays, and disbelief that the Sultan had signed over his sovereignty to the British Crown.
Protests also erupted in other parts of the country. My father felt the only way the Malays could fight this attempt to take over the country was if all the Malay organisations in the Malay states were united under one organisation. And there had to be one strong leader to lead the protest movement. He felt that that man could only be the fearless Datuk Onn, who was then the Batu Pahat district officer.
My father and two friends, Syed Alwi al-Hadi and Syed Abdul Rahman Abu Bakar, drove there to discuss with Datuk Onn this urgent need to bring all the Malay associations together under one umbrella. It was on that momentous night that Datuk Onn dictated the historic letter to Utusan Melayu calling on all the Malays to come together in one United Malay Organisation.
The name "Umno" which is actually in English — first came from my father. He was inspired by the formation of the United Nations to bring world peace after the end of World War II. Since this was an effort to make every disparate party more loyal to their state and Sultan than to a nation together, he came up with the name United Malays Organisation. It was Umo at first, until the big meeting [the first Malay Congress] at the Sultan Sulaiman Club [in Kuala Lumpur] where [Zainal Abidin Ahmad] Za'aba then added the word "national", and it became Umno.
What role did your mother play?
Zainah in May 2006 at the SIS conference "Trends in Islamic Family Law Reform". Seated are the daughters of three past prime ministers, Nori Abdullah, Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir and Hanis Hussein.
My mother, Puan Sri Saodah Abdullah, was a model homemaker, an extremely capable woman. But I always felt sad that she did not reach her full potential. She could have been a doctor.
She was so interested in medicine; she was in the St John's Brigade, she was in the Red Cross, she knew everything about first aid and nutrition, and she had this huge dictionary of medicine in Jawi that she always referred to.
But she was born in 1922 and there were no opportunities for her further education. She went to a domestic science school where she was an outstanding student, and later gave cooking and sewing classes. During those early days of Umno, she opened her house to women who ostensibly left home to attend sewing classes, but who were actually organising protests against the Malayan Union.
My nationalist father wanted to send us to a Malay school and it was one of the few times my mother held out against him. My father was such a patriarch who expected to be served hand and foot, and my mother was the good obedient wife. But when it came to our education, she had greater ambitions for us. At that time, if you went to a Malay school, you ended up being a Malay school teacher. But she wanted her children to be financially independent and successful professionals.
It's clear where you get your sense of advocacy and value system from.
Zainah (second from right), with other SIS founding members at the organisation's launch in 1991 by then Minister in charge of Women Tan Sri Napsian Omar (left).
My father brought us up with strong values. I remember when Tun Hussein Onn became prime minister, my father received an endless stream of visitors arriving in Mercedes cars. These business[people] wanted my father to be chair[person] or director of this or that company. My father would be totally baffled. He would tell them that he had no money to invest in their companies, so how could he sit on the board.
They just wanted his name because they thought my father would be able to get them access to the new prime minister. So he sent them off packing.
When I went to study at Institut Teknologi Mara, my father insisted on paying a token sum even though pensioners' children did not have to pay fees to study there. In fact, we could even get a small monthly stipend. I remember I was shocked to find friends whose fathers were wealthy business[people] getting the monthly allowance, just because their fathers were also pensioners. But my father felt that since he could afford it, he shouldn't be depriving another poor person of the privilege.
What kind of Malaysia do you want for yourself and future generations?
With Nelson Mandela, "the only man I ever wanted to marry", on his visit to Malaysia in 1990 after his release from 27 years in prison.
I want a Malaysia that truly celebrates its diversity and sees this as strength. This is not something difficult because it's in our blood, in our history. We once embraced our Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim heritage that enriched us.
Nobody felt that we were lesser Muslims because we had wedding ceremonies that adapted practices from the Hindu tradition, or that we performed the wayang kulit. The Malays were once confident and proud of their identity. How did it come to today where Malay [Malaysians] now feel under siege? It's politicians with their short-term interest who have created this siege mentality. "Mati Umno, matinya Melayu". Please lah, this is 2009! Malay [Malaysians] will survive even if Umno is dead! There are more Malay [Malaysian] Members of Parliament now than ever before.
I also want for every Malaysian to have the opportunity to realise their full potential. Especially now, when we are competing globally. We urgently need to do something about the education system. It's creating bigger class divisions. Rich Malaysians are sending their children to private schools, while the national school system remains 90% mono-ethnic. We're losing the kids who have a cosmopolitan upbringing and global outlook to the private school system.
Now the better off Malay [Malaysians] are sending their children to private schools as well, educating them to compete globally. If this regression, fundamentalism, intolerance, the obsession to control every minute detail of our lives and our choices does not stop, if everything continues to be seen as a threat to the Muslims and the Malays, more of the best are going to leave Malaysia, and that includes the best of Malay [Malaysians].
WHAT AN INCREDIBLE PHENOMENON THIS BOY IS AND SUCH NOBLE ASPIRATIONS.
This lad indeed has a gifted brain.... His parents used to sell portion of their investments to purchase his Medicine related books that he wanted to study and today he gets everything from people who really want him to fulfill his dreams....
A year ago a footage emerged from a remote village in India . The video showed a young girl receiving surgery to separate her fingers, which were badly burned and fused together. Why did this operation make headlines around the world? The surgery was performed by a 7-year-old boy named Akrit Jaswal.
Now 13 years old, Akrit has an IQ of 146 and is considered the smartest person his age in India a country of more than a billion people. Before Akrit could even speak, his parents say they knew he was special.
'He learned very fast,' says Raksha, Akrit's mother. 'After learning the alphabet, we started to teach him joining of words, and he started writing as well. He was two.'
At an age when most children are learning their ABCs, Akrit was reading Shakespeare and assembling a library of medical textbooks. When he was 5 years old, he enrolled in school. One year later, Akrit was teaching English and math classes.
Akrit developed a passion for science and anatomy at an early age. Doctors at local hospitals took notice and started allowing him to observe surgeries when he was 6 years old. Inspired by what he saw, Akrit read everything he could on the topic. When an impoverished family heard about his amazing abilities, they asked if he would operate on their daughter for free. Her surgery was a success. After the surgery, Akrit was hailed as a medical genius in India . Neighbors and strangers flocked to him for advice and treatment. At age 11, Akrit was admitted to Punjab University . He's the youngest student ever to attend an Indian university. That same year, he was also invited to London 's famed Imperial College to exchange ideas with scientists on the cutting edge of medical research.
Akrit says he has millions of medical ideas, but he's currently focused on developing a cure for cancer. 'I've developed a concept called oral gene therapy on the basis of my research and my theories,' he says. 'I'm quite dedicated towards working on this mechanism.'
Growing up, Akrit says he used to see cancer patients lying on the side of the road because they couldn't afford treatment or hospitals had no space for them.. Now, he wants to use his intellect to ease their suffering. '[I've been] going to hospitals since the age of 6, so I have seen firsthand people suffering from pain,' he says. 'I get very sad, and so that's the main motive of my passion about medicine, my passion about cancer.'
Currently, Akrit is working toward a bachelor's degrees in zoology, botany and chemistry. Someday, he hopes to continue his studies at Harvard University .
