Badan kehakiman Perancis yang telah secara rasmi memulakan penyiasatan ke dalam perjanjian skandal kapal selam Scorpene, mensasarkan kepada maklumat bahawa terdapat rasuah yang terlibat dalam penjualan kapal selam Perancis ke Malaysia.
Tumpuan syak wasangka kini terarah kepada € 146 juta yang mungkin berakhir dalam poket pegawai kerajaan Malaysia, termasuk Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Selepas dua tahun siasatan polis berikutan aduan yang difailkan oleh NGO dari Malaysia, Suaram, kes mengenai perjanjian Scorpene akan diadili oleh dua hakim iaitu Roger Le Loire dan Tournaire Serge di Tribunal Paris Grande de Instance.
Menurut undang-undang Perancis, perlantikan dua hakim adalah satu kebiasaan bagi kes-kes berprofil tinggi serta mampu meningkatkan kualiti penghakiman dan secara tidak langsung menunjukkan kes ini sesuatu yang serius kerana ia melibatkan maruah negara itu sendiri.
Menurut AFP, siasatan akan menjurus kepada tiga kontrak untuk kapal selam bernilai € 1.2 bilion, yang telah ditandatangani pada 5 Jun, 2002.
Matlamat utama adalah penghantaran kapal selam pertama Malaysia dan melatih anggota Tentera Laut Diraja Malaysia (TLDM).
Menurut dokumen yang dikaji, kontrak yang dimeterai mempunyai dua komponen:
a) Penjualan dua kapal selam yang dibina oleh DCNS pembinaan kapal tentera laut Perancis dan Izar firma pembinaan kapal Sepanyol, € 920 juta; dan
b) Penghantaran "sokongan logistik" dari sebuah syarikat Malaysia, Perimekar Bhd , bernilai € 114 juta, untuk melatih kumpulan pertama anggota TLDM seramai 200 orang.
Tambah AFP lagi, tuduhan rasuah boleh melibatkan individu yang berpangkat tinggi di Malaysia seperti Abdul Razak Baginda, rakan rapat Najib, yang ketika perjanjian itu ditandatangani, Najib adalah menteri pertahanan.
Kesangsian berlaku berdasarkan fakta bahawa komisen dan dividen mungkin telah dipindahkan ke Terasasi Sdn Bhd dan Perimekar, kedua-dua syarikat yang dimiliki oleh Razak Baginda dan saudaranya yang adalah pemegang saham utama.
Hakim-hakim akan menentukan sama ada perkhidmatan sebenar dalam urusan perjanjian pembelian ini telah disempurnakan oleh syarikat-syarikat terbabit.
Menurut AFP, tiga kontrak yang akan menjadi tumpuan utama siasatan.
Memorandum sulit
Kontrak pertama adalah untuk "perkhidmatan sokongan" yang € 114 juta telah dibayar oleh kerajaan Malaysia kepada Perimekar.
Yang kedua, yang dikenali sebagai "kontrak C5 perniagaan kejuruteraan", telah selesai pada bulan Ogos 2000 antara DCNI, anak syarikat DCN dan Thales International Asia (Thint Asia), bernilai kira-kira € 30 juta.
Perjanjian ketiga meliputi "perjanjian perundingan" yang ditandatangani pada Oktober 2000 antara Thint Asia dan Terasasi itu.
Sejumlah € 36 juta telah diperolehi menerusi Terasasi Malaysia dan Terasasi Hong Kong.
Para penyiasat Perancis juga sedang mengkaji salah satu invois yang dikeluarkan oleh Terasasi pada bulan Ogos 2004 untuk € 359,450 yang dihantar ke Thint Asia.
Ini adalah kerana terdapat nota yang ditulis dengan tangan yang menyebut bahawa "Razak bertanya jika SF [supporting fee or comission - yuran sokongan atau KOMISEN] boleh dipertimbangkan dengan seberapa pantas".
Menurut para penyiasat, "ternyata bahawa ... jumlah yang dibayar kepada Terasasi akhirnya memberi manfaat sama ada kepada Najib, Menteri Pertahanan, atau penasihat beliau Razak Baginda".
Tetapi Olivier Metzner, peguam untuk Thales, berkata kepada sebuah akhbar Perancis (Le Parisien) bahawa "kita telah menunjukkan kepada para penyiasat bahawa tiada unsur rasuah dalam kes ini".
Walau bagaimanapun, satu memorandum sulit yang dibuat menyatakan: "yang akan mendapat manfaat daripada dana ini tidak sukar untuk membayangkan: kaum keluarga dan hubungan Razak Baginda. Di samping itu, dana ini akhirnya akan diperolehi oleh parti politik dominan di Malaysia (Umno). "
Menurut undang-undang Malaysia, semua kontrak pertahanan melibatkan negara asing melebihi RM50 juta mesti melalui sebuah syarikat tempatan.
Bagi peguam William Bourdon dan Joseph Breham, yang mengendalikan perkara itu untuk Suaram, "arahan ini sepatutnya membantu mencari jalan siapa yang memberi dan siapa yang menerima komisen tanpa mengira kewarganegaraannya".
Di bawah undang-undang Perancis, memberi rasuah kepada pegawai asing adalah satu jenayah yang boleh dihukum penjara selama 10 tahun.
Terjemahan dari artikel 'Gun Begins to Smoke in Malaysian Sub Purchase' olehJalan Pulang
******************************************
Gun Begins to Smoke in Malaysian Sub Purchase
Written by John Berthelsen
THURSDAY, 05 APRIL 2012
Money may have been funneled to UMNO officials through Hong Kong incorporated company
French investigating magistrates probing the US$1.2 billion sale of submarines to the Malaysian Defense Ministry are targeting, among other things, a Hong Kong-based company called Terasasi (Hong Kong) Ltd., whose principal officers are Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s close friend and the friend’s father.
Investigators believe that at least some of the €36 million funneled through Terasasi ended up in the pockets of Najib, who was Malaysia’s defense minister and deputy prime minister when the two Scorpene submarines were purchased from Thales International or Thint Asia. The state-owned defense giant DCN, later known as DCNS, and Thales established a joint company named Armaris to manufacture the submarines in 2002.
The two Armaris Scorpenes, named for the first prime minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and Najib’s father, Tun Abdul Razak, are on duty in Malaysian waters.
Abdul Razak Baginda, the former head of a Malaysian think tank who was at the center of a 2006 investigation into the death of Mongolian translator and party girl Altantuya Shaariibuu, is listed as one of the two directors of the company, which was previously incorporated on June 28, 2002 as Kinabalu Advisory and Support Services Ltd according to the Hong Kong Companies Registry. The other director is Abdul Malim Baginda, Baginda’s father.
The Terasasi offices are located on the 19th floor of an office at 3 Lockhart Road in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong. There is no indication in Hong Kong government records of what Terasasi’s business is. It is only listed as a “local company.” However, French authorities say Terasasi apparently received regular payments from Thint Asia. One payment was for €360,000 accompanied with a handwritten note saying “Razak wants it to be paid quickly.”
The magistrates have documents that show that the money was funneled from Thint Asia to Terasasi -- €3 million of it when Terasasi was still domiciled in Malaysia, and €33 million after it was incorporated in Hong Kong. There is no indication at this point where the money went. French investigators, however, theorize that it was part of €146 million that may have been funneled to officials of the United Malays National Organization and Najib, who traveled with Abdul Razak Baginda several times to France as defense minister at the time the Malaysians purchased the submarines from DCNS.
On at least one trip in 2004, Altantuya, then Razak Baginda’s lover, accompanied him to France as a translator. He later jilted her, impelling her to come to Kuala Lumpur to demand US$500,000 from him. In a handwritten letter found after her death, she wrote that she was attempting to blackmail him, although she didn’t say why. Two of Najib’s bodyguards were convicted of shooting her in the head and blowing up her body with plastic explosives in September 2006, possibly to hide the fact that she was pregnant when she was killed.
Because her killing does not appear to be connected to the scandal, French investigators are not looking into the causes of her death or the reasons behind it.
Although Razak Baginda was charged with abetting her murder, he was released without having to put up a defense and fled to the UK, where he remains. Najib’s former bodyguards remain on death row in Malaysia. Their appeal against the death penalty has been delayed, presumably until after national elections expected in May or June this year.
It was previously revealed on the floor of the Dewan Rakyat, Malaysia’s parliament, that Perimekar received another €114 as a commission on the sale of the vessels. Perimekar at the time was wholly owned by another company, KS Ombak Laut Sdn Bhd, which in turn was also controlled by Razak Baginda and Mazalinda. Perimekar is now 20 percent each owned by the military retirement system LTAT and Boustead Holdings.
Two years of police investigation at the behest of the Malaysian NGO Suaram into the sale of the submarines culminated recently with the appointment of investigating magistrates Roger Le Loire and Serge Tournaire at the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance, according to Agence France Press, which said the probe involves three contracts for the submarines which were signed on June 5, 2002.
According to the documents, the contracts had two components: the sale of two submarines built by Thint and the Spanish shipbuilding firm Izar, for €920 million; and the delivery of “logistical support” from Perimekar Bhd – the €114 million -- to train the first 200 Royal Malaysian Navy personnel although there is no indication that the company had the wherewithal to train them.
Under the bribery conventions of the 32-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the French defense contractors could be liable for criminal sanctions if it is proven that no real services were delivered by the companies. Under French law, violators are liable for up to 10 years in prison.
Joseph Breham (left), a lawyer with Solicitors International Human Rights Group which was engaged by Suaram, said in October last year that DCNS often budgeted as much as 8 to 12 percent of its total receipts as "commissions" to grease sales of armaments in third-world countries. Breham said Perimekar had received the commission for "supporting the contract," which he said was a euphemism for unexplained costs, and also for "housing the crew" of the submarines in France.
In France, before 2002, any money used to bribe foreign officials was tax deductible. When the former finance director of DCN made a claim for €31 million allegedly used to bribe the Malaysians for the purchase of the Scorpenes, Breham said, the Minister of Budget questioned such a large bribe, although he did eventually authorize the tax break.
The contracts cited by AFP included the €114 million one paid by the Malaysian government to Perimekar. The second, called “C5 contract of engineering business,” was concluded in August 2000 between DCNI, a subsidiary of DCN, and Thales International Asia worth some €30 million. The third was the “consulting agreement” signed in October 2000 between Thint Asia and Terasasi.
The French investigators are also studying one of the invoices issued by Terasasi in August 2004 for €359,450 sent to Thint Asia. For investigators, “it appears that… the amounts paid to Terasasi ultimately benefited Najib, the defense minister, or his adviser Razak Baginda.”
Olivier Metzner, a lawyer for Thales, told the French daily Le Parisien that “we have already demonstrated to investigators that there was no corruption in this case.” However, a confidential memorandum made available to Asia Sentinel and the Malaysian website Free Malaysia Today states that: “The beneficiaries of these funds are not difficult to imagine: the family clan and Razak Baginda relations. In addition, these funds will find their way to the dominant political party (Umno).”
No comments:
Post a Comment