SHAH ALAM: Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today maintained at the High Court that he had never met Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaaribu and did not order former Special Action Unit policemen Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar to kill her.
Najib, 71, told the High Court that he was innocent of the crime where Altantuya was shot dead before her body was blown up with explosives at a secluded spot near the Subang Dam in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam in 2006.
"I had not known her at all. I have never met her and I am innocent of the heinous crime.
"I have said this on record and religious oath numerous times," he said in his witness statement in his defamation suit against former attorney-general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas.
The suit initiated by Najib was over Thomas' alleged defamatory statements in chapter 42 titled Altantuya in the memoir entitled My Story: Justice In The Wilderness.
Najib claimed there were defamatory statements in the chapter which allegedly implicated him with the murder of Altantuya.
Najib, represented by lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, had also named book publishing company GB Gerak Budaya Enterprise Sdn Bhd in the suit.
Thomas and Gerak Budaya were represented by lawyers Alan Gomez and Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan.
Najib told the court he knew Abdul Razak Baginda, a defence analyst who was involved in a deal to buy two submarines from France.
Asked how Razak came to be acquainted with Altantuya, Najib said he had learnt from media reports that she was purportedly an interpreter and he later got to know that they were in a romantic relationship.
Najib said Thomas, who wrote the memoir after his tenure as A-G, had attempted to defame him and smear his name and reputation by saying he allegedly masterminded the 2006 murder but the High Court and Federal Court did not implicate him with the crime.
"Azilah's statutory declaration (SD) was made without any factual basis. No source was revealed in Azilah's affidavit. My integrity and reputation have been tarnished with baseless accusations such as that in the impugned passages (of chapter 42)," he said.
Najib said Thomas had never shown him the contents of chapter 42 before it was published and it was untrue that he had purportedly orchestrated Altantuya's murder despite the numerous articles used by Thomas and Gerak Budaya to link him to the crime.
"There were materials to this effect but the fact remains the contents were not verified and it is all hearsay. Merely because something is published in the media does not render its contents admissible.
"With regard to court cases, in the criminal trial, Sirul, Azilah and Razak were charged with the murder.
"Razak was acquitted at the end of the prosecution's stage. The defence was called for Sirul and Azilah and, at the end of that, they were convicted. At the Court of Appeal, the decision was that they were acquitted. Then at the Federal Court, the conviction was restored," he said.
Najib had described Gerak Budaya as reckless and had shown no remorse for defaming him as it should have checked the sources, the originality and truth of an author's work, especially involving controversial issues with no proof whatsoever.
The trial before judge Datuk Khadijah Idris resumes on June 30 next year.
Najib, in his statement of claim, said Thomas had authored the book published in 2021 and the alleged defamation under the title "Altantuya" ran from pages 400 to 405.
Shafee had said the offending passage was reckless, irresponsible, deliberate, malicious and aimed to lower his client's esteem and good reputation in the eyes of the public.
The chapter was in relation to Azilah's SD which claimed that he received a direct order from Najib to kill Altantuya.
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