A Malaysian rights group said on Wednesday it filed complaints to French prosecutors that allege shipbuilder DCNS paid kickbacks to a friend of Malaysia’s prime minister to aid a US$1.2 billion submarine deal.
Malaysia ordered two diesel-electric Scorpene submarines in 2002 as part of a naval upgrade. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was defense minister at the time.
Rights group Suaram said it filed two complaints in December last year and February with French prosecutors. The complaint centers on a 114 million euro (US$150 million) fee paid by DCNS to Malaysian firm Perimekar Sdn Bhd to facilitate the deal, Suaram official Cynthia Gabriel said.
Perimekar is owned by the wife of Abdul Razak Baginda, who once was Najib’s aide and a close friend and who was last year acquitted of abetting the murder of his former mistress, a Mongolian woman.
The case could embarrass Najib, who is struggling to consolidate his power a year after taking office. Although the opposition has long accused the government of corruption in the sub deal, this is the first legal action, albeit in a foreign country.
Joseph Breham, a French lawyer hired by Suaram, said French prosecutors agreed early last month to launch a preliminary inquiry into possible corruption and kickbacks paid by DCNS to Perimekar.
This was based on grounds that Perimekar was formed only a few months before the contract was inked, had no track record in submarine services and didn’t have the financial ability to support the contract, he said.
In Paris, a French judicial official confirmed an investigation of DCNS on suspicion of corruption and tax fraud was launched after Suaram filed a complaint in December.
Police suspect a DCNS subsidiary, Armaris, paid Perimekar to help with the submarine deal, he said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Gabriel said the fact that French prosecutors have launched an inquiry into the case showed a “lack of transparency and good governance” in Malaysia.
“For far too long, this has been shrouded in secrecy. It looks as if Perimekar was just formed to receive the money. Where did the money go and to whom? We want to know the truth,” she told reporters.
She did not say why the complaint was filed only now, eight years after the deal was made.
Najib has denied there was any corruption. Malaysian defense officials have said the fee was paid to Perimekar for coordination and support services.
DCNS spokesman Emmanuel Gaudez declined to comment, and Malaysian defense ministry officials couldn’t be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Gabriel said Suaram will take legal action against Perimekar and the government in Malaysia if the French court rules there is corruption by DCNS.
Malaysia received its first DCNS submarine last year. The second vessel is to be delivered this year.
Breham said if French prosecutors find sufficient evidence, the case will go before a court but it is likely to last years. Similar allegations of corruption have been made against DCNS in Paris for its arms deals in Pakistan and Taiwan, he said.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
RSS