THE ALTANTUYA TRIAL - A Layman's Perspective

I am a common man on the street with no formal training as far as the law goes. However, with what little I know of the legal process, I somehow believe that the “Altantuya trial” is a complete sham (though I firmly believe in the old adage “that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”).

If my observations/opinions are flawed, please, do feel free to correct me. It is rather disturbing to note that hours before the case, the entire prosecution team was changed! Why that was done was never satisfactorily explained by the AG’s office. In fact, there is a host of questions a layman like me would like answered.

One cannot help noticing that as the case progresses, it raises more questions than answers. The failure of the parties concerned to react to these revelations is equally mind-boggling. For instance, the expunged immigration records were never pursued. A witness testified under oath that she saw a photograph of a threesome, one of whom, she declared was Najib Razak. This matter was also not pursued by both prosecution and defense. The use of Mindef controlled C-4 explosives was never questioned, two of the three accused were members of an elite squad assigned to the DPM, who had no reason whatsoever to murder the Mongolian girl (or if they had, the court did not see fit to question why) unless they were acting on orders!

A recent Statutory Declaration by a private investigator, revealing some very juicy details of the case, his subsequent disappearance after his retraction in a second Statutory Declaration, the failure of the Court to recall this witness; all these makes one wonders if the Malaysian courts are here to dispense justice or to protect the elite in Malaysian society!

I may be very wrong, but this is the first time I know of a case where both the prosecution and the defense went to great lengths to discredit their own witnesses! Not only that, they have also put in tremendous effort to ensure that the name of the “Malaysian government official” does not surface in the case.

“A prosecutor is supposed to seek justice for the deceased victim's family against the murderers, so how come the prosecutor is now ganging up with defense lawyers to oppose the victim's family lawyer? Is this a case of prosecutor vs. defense or a case of prosecutor plus defense vs. victim's family? Obviously, the prosecution and defense seem to have plenty of common interests. What are those common interests?” so asked Kim Quek of “Asia Sentinel”.

And we thought there was hope when they announced the reformation of the judiciary!