The hunt for Bala is on (UPDATED with Chinese translation)

 

Your mission, ASP Suresh, if you decide to accept it, will be to try and locate private investigator Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal somewhere in Chennai, India, whereby you will attempt to silence him by whatever means necessary. If you are captured or detected, the government of Malaysia will deny having any arrangements with you. This DVD will self-destruct in ten seconds.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Does the opening line above sound like the opening scene from Mission Impossible? I hope so because it was intended that way. A few days ago ASP Suresh flew into Chennai, India, to launch his mission. And his mission is to try to locate PI Bala and deal with him.

Who sent him there? Was it Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak or IGP Musa Hassan? Ah, the police officers from Bukit Aman who report to me did not say. That is because they are not too sure who ASP Suresh is currently reporting to. But if it is IGP Musa Hassan then ASP Suresh will be on official duties and therefore would have been given clearance to leave the country. However, if he is not on official duties and has not been given clearance and is instead on leave, then it is 'on a frolic of his own’. And this would mean PM Najib sent him to India without IGP Musa’s knowledge.

I am sure if IGP Musa did not send ASP Suresh to India and was in fact kept in the dark about this matter then he would be hitting the roof as soon as he reads this piece. It would be very interesting to see how IGP Musa reacts to this news, which he has had to read in Malaysia Today and was not kept abreast of.

Yes, someone in the corridors of power in Putrajaya is getting extremely nervous. There is this unresolved matter about the recently deposed Special Officer to the Prime Minister, Nasir Safar -- who uttered that most racist statement that Chinese immigrants were prostitutes and Indian immigrants beggars -- who has now been identified as that mystery man in the blue Proton Saga who was in front of Razak Bgainda’s house the day Sirul and Azilah picked up Altantuya and subsequently murdered her.

But there was one other man also there that day. And that man is private investigator Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal. So they need to get to Bala before the MACC does. If the MACC gets to Bala first and records his statement and he testifies that the man in the blue Proton Saga was Najib’s Special Officer, Nasir Safar, the shit will really hit the fan, if it not already has.

The MACC wants to meet Bala to record his testimony. They said so in their letter to his lawyer. But they want Bala to fly to Singapore and meet them in the Malaysian High Commission in Singapore. That would be a most foolish thing to do. That would be like meeting in Bukit Aman.

Singapore and Malaysia have a ‘special arrangement’. All Malaysia has to do is to request the Singapore police to detain Bala as soon as he touches down in the country and drive him across the Causeway and hand him over to the Malaysian police. They do not even need to apply for a court order or apply for extradition. The Malaysian police just have to request the Singapore police to detain Bala ‘on their behalf’.

This is what the Singapore police did on the Mas Selamat case. They just requested the Malaysian police to detain the wanted man and keep him in Kamunting ‘on behalf of Singapore’. And now Mas Selamat is under Internal Security Act detention in Kamunting although he committed a crime in Singapore and not in Malaysia.

Bala’s lawyer wrote to the MACC to offer to set up a meeting in London. But the MACC did not respond to that letter. They still want to meet in Singapore as per their first letter. So we now have a stalemate. The MACC wants to meet in the Malaysian High Commission in Singapore while Bala’s lawyer insists on meeting in London.

The MACC also inserted other terms and conditions in their letter to Bala’s lawyer. They want all correspondences and communications to be marked RAHSIA. That means it comes under the Official Secrets Act (OSA). And this would also mean if anyone leaks any of these letters and publishes them in Malaysia Today that would be a violation of the OSA and he or she could be arrested and charged.

Furthermore, the MACC wants to meet Bala alone and not in the presence of any lawyers, plus they refuse to allow a video recording of their interview with Bala. Both these conditions have of course been rejected. Bala’s lawyer insists that a team of lawyers be present during the interview and that the interview must be recorded.

Bala will be telling the MACC about ASP Suresh’s role as middleman in the negotiations, the meeting he had with PM Najib’s brother, the threat they made against his family coupled with the offer of RM5 million to buy his silence, and the role played by two of PM Najib’s aids in this entire episode -- his ADC Musa Safri and Special Officer Nasir Safar. The MACC, therefore, does not want Bala’s lawyers to be present or a video recording made of the interview since what Bala would be saying would be most damaging indeed to PM Najib and his family.

So now we have a stalemate. Both sides are sticking to their guns. And it looks like the MACC will only be able to interview Bala on his terms and not on the MACC’s terms. So where do they go from here? They can’t drag this matter forever. Sooner or later the MACC will have to explain to the public why they have not yet met Bala to record his statement. And it would appear like the MACC does not want to meet Bala because they fear what Bala will be telling them. And this would certainly not bode well for PM Najib.

And that was when ASP Suresh was sent on his ‘Mission Impossible’ a few days ago. He is to track down Bala and try to persuade him to not meet the MACC. Bala will need money, of course, to disappear for good. ASP Suresh has been authorised to promise Bala a payment of RM5 million, to be paid in monthly instalments of RM50,000. And the monthly commitments will be handled by Rosmah Mansor’s Carpetman cum Bagman cum Toyboy, Deepak Jaikishan.

But they failed to take into consideration some very crucial elements in ensuring the success of this plan. And one of these crucial elements is RPK of Malaysia Today. RPK knows what is going on and his silence can’t be bought. Another very crucial element is Bala himself. They are assuming that Bala is in Chennai and that he can be bought. Oh, and maybe a third crucial element is Bukit Aman. They still have not discovered which police officers in Bukit Aman report to me. So I get to know about ASP Suresh making his trip to Chennai even before he can land in India.

Ooh, I just love this cloak-and-dagger stuff. They are trying to look for me and are trying to find out who my ‘backers’ are when they fail to realise that some of my backers sit in Bukit Aman itself and that they keep me abreast of what transpires on the top floors of the police headquarters even before the plan is launched.

ASP Suresh, have a good holiday in Chennai, eat plenty of Roti Chennai, and go back and tell your masters that you failed to find Bala.

Till we talk again, goodbye ASP Suresh, wherever you are.

READ THE CHINESE TRANSLATION HERE