Altantuyaa was born in 1978. Her parents raised her and her sister while they worked in Russia where Altantuyaa started first grade elementary school. She was reportedly fluent in Mongolian, Russian, Chinese and English..
Altantuyaa moved back to Mongolia in 1990 and a few years later, married a Mongolian techno singer, Maadai. They had a child in 1996 but the marriage ended in divorce and the child went to live with Altantuyaa's parents.
Despite training as a teacher, Altantuyaa briefly moved to France where she attended modeling school before returning to Mongolia.
Altantuyaa remarried and had another child in 2003 but the second marriage also ended in divorce. The second child also lives with Altantuyaa's parents. Her mother said she has never been a model.
Murder
She was allegedly introduced to Abdul Razak Baginda, a defense analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre think-tank, at an international diamond convention in Hong Kong by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, and had a relationship with him. She reportedly had worked as Abdul Razak’s translator on a deal he was brokering for the Malaysian government to buy submarines from France. The pair seem to have
travelled to Paris together for the submarine deal. The two quickly became romantically involved. Altantuya, nicknamed Tuya by her friends, proved to be a useful assistant, helping Baginda translate from Russian to English. Amy, Altantuya’s best friend said that at the end of March 2005 the couple was in Paris, where they met with Najib Razak. She mentioned that a picture was taken which showed the three in a Parisian private club. “Tuya showed me the pix. She said that one of the men was her boyfriend, Abdul Razak Baginda, and the other the “big boss”, Najib Razak. I asked her if they were brothers because of the names, but she said no, and that Najib Razak was the ‘prim
e minister’”.
In October 2006, the French newspaper Liberation claimed that Altantuya was informed that the commission paid by Armaris, a Spanish company involved in Malaysia’s acquisition of three submarines for one billion euros (RM4.7 billion), had been deposited in a bank account in Malaysia. The commission of 114 million euros was allegedly paid into the account of Perimekar, a company Razak controlled. Altantuya then allegedly flew to Kuala Lumpur with her cousin to demand her share of the commission, which was to have been US$500,000.
When she went missing on 19 October 2006, her cousin lodged a police report and sought help from the Mongolian embassy in Bangkok. Altantuya, by her own admission in the last letter she wrote before her murder, had been blackmailing Razak..
The Malaysian police found fragments of bone, later verified as hers, in forested land near the Subang Dam in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam. Police investigation of her remains revealed that she was shot twice before C-4 explosives were used on her remains, although there has been later suggestion that the C-4 explosives may have killed her. When her remains were found their identity could only be confirmed with DNA testing. The provenance of the C-4 remains unclear.
Abdul Razak and three members of the police force were arrested during the murder investigation. The two murder suspects have been named as Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 30 and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, 35. They had been members of the elite Unit Tindakan Khas (the Malaysian Police Special Action Force or counter-terrorism unit) and were both assigned to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who was also the Defence Minister at the time of the murder. Abdul Razak has been charged with abetment in the murder.
Murder trial
The trial was originally going to be held in March 2007, but was postponed until the 4 June 2007. Due to controversial and last-minute changes in the prosecution and defence teams, and the presiding judge, the trial was again postponed until 18 June 2007. The pre-trial preparations have seen both the prosecution and defence teams level accusations of evidential impropriety at one another. During the trial there was an incident between Baginda's wife and the victim's father.
According to testimony in the trial of Altantuya's accused murderer Abdul Razak Baginda, the murdered woman accompanied him to Paris at a time when Malaysia's defense ministry, headed by Najib Tun Razak, was negotiating through a Malaysian company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, to buy two Scorpene submarines and a used Agosta submarine produced by the French government under a French-Spanish joint venture, Armaris. Perimekar at the time was owned by a company called Ombak Laut, which was wholly owned by Abdul Razak.
On 22 July 2008 lawyer Karpal Singh filed a notice of motion to call Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and three others to testify in the trial for the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu. Karpal who holds a watching brief for Altantuya's family, also sought to recall private detective P. Balasubramaniam who was the first prosecution witness in the trial. Karpal said that summoning Najib is bound to admit fresh evidence to the case. The application was filed under Section 425 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) which allows a court to summon or recall any person as a witness in a trial. It also allows the court to summon or recall any such person if his evidence appears to the court to be essential to the just decision of the case. On 23 July 2008 the High Court rejected a petition by lawyer Karpal Singh to obtain testimony from Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, dealing a blow to the opposition's efforts to link Najib to the 2006 killing of translator Altantuya Shaariibuu. In rejecting the application, High Court judge Mohd Zaki said Karpal, who is holding a watching brief for victim Altantuya's family, has no locus standi or is in no position to make the application. He mentioned only the parties involved, namely the prosecution and the defence, have the right to do so. numerous other evidence has been presented during the trial, raising suspicions that the proceedings are being drawn out to prepare for either acquittals or diminished sentences for the three, perhaps to keep them from pointing the finger at Najib.
On 31 October 2008 the High Court acquitted Abdul Razak Baginda of abetment in the murder of Altantuya. Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar have been ordered to enter their defence and testify under oath. On 10 November 2008 it was announced that the murder trial has been postponed to January 2009 in order to allow the defence more time to prepare and gather witnesses. Among the witnesses that a defence lawyer is seeking is Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamarudin and “missing” private investigator P. Balasubramaniam, whose whereabouts is still not known.
From the onset of the trial the defence counsel for Sirul Azhar and Azilah had sought to get the 112 statements from all prosecution witnesses and this was rejected on the grounds that witness statements recorded under Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code is privileged. The judge has denied them access to the witness statement of Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's former aide-de-camp DSP Musa Safri to testify in order to rebut Abdul Razak's affidavit.
Statements by the Accused
On 3 February, 2009 Sirul Azhar asked the court not to sentence him to death for Altantuya's murder, saying he was like "a black sheep that has to be sacrificed" to protect unnamed people who have never been brought to court or faced questioning. "I have no reason to cause hurt, what's more to take the life of the victim in such a cruel manner," Sirul said. "I appeal to the court, which has the powers to determine if I live or die, not to sentence me so as to fulfil others' plans for me." He stated in his confession which was tape-recorded and conducted in Bahasa Malaysia, that he was told he was not to answer questions but that whether in answer to questions or not, his remarks would be recorded as a statement.
New Evidence
First Statutory Declaration
In a statutory declaration in his sedition trial in June 2008, Raja Petra accused Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor (the wife of Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak) of being one of three individuals who were present at the crime scene when Altantuya Shaariibuu was murdered on 19 October 2006. He wrote that Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, and Acting Colonel Aziz Buyong and his wife, Norhayati, Rosmah’s aide-de-camp, were present at the scene of the murder and that Aziz Buyong was the individual who placed C4 plastic explosive on Altantuya’s body and blew it up.
Dr Shaariibuu Setev, the father of murdered Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, has asked the police to conduct a thorough investigation into an allegation by Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin. He said the police should look seriously into the allegation by Raja Petra as it might provide them with fresh evidence. In retaliation, the two people named in Raja Petra Kamarudin’s statutory declaration on 18 June 2008, Lt-Col Aziz Buyong and his wife Lt-Col Norhayati Hassan, as having been present at the murder scene of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu are suing the Malaysia Today editor for defamation. Aziz is seeking an apology from Raja Petra to be published in certain websites and newspapers, the removal of the statutory declaration from his blog and damages of RM1 million.
Second Statutory Declaration
A second statutory declaration was filed on 1 July 2008 by Abdul Razak Baginda's private investigator P. Balasubramaniam, disclosing Najib's links to the murdered Mongolian girl. He said the police omitted information about the relationship between Najib and Mongolian murder victim Altantuya Shaariibuu in his statement. In the declaration Abdul Razak had told Balasubramaniam that the deputy prime minister had a sexual relationship with Altantuya and that the trio had dined together in Paris. Balasubramaniam detailed conversations in a statutory declaration in which the well-connected political analyst allegedly told him he had in effect inherited Altantuya as a lover from Najib, who passed her on because he didn’t want to be harassed as deputy prime minister. Among other lurid details, Balasubramaniam described text messages between Najib and Abdul Razak in which the latter was asking for help to avoid arrest. Former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to look into the case.
P. Balasubramaniam made a retraction of the statutory declaration he made on 1 July 2008 and its replacement with one that erased all traces of allegations with references to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Altantuya Shaariibuu's murder. There were accusations that this new statutory declaration could have been due to intimidation or inducement, and was done not on his own free will. Bala's first lawyer Americk Singh Sidhu said he was not able to get in touch with Bala despite repeated phone calls. The Malaysian police said on Sunday 6 July that they have asked Interpol to help find the private investigator who has been reported. missing since making explosive claims linking the deputy premier to a murder. Bala's nephew has filed a missing person's report, saying the investigator and his family had disappeared. It was discovered on July 10 that Balasubramaniam's house in Taman Pelangi here has been broken into but police have yet to ascertain whether anything was stolen. Balasubramaniam is said to have taken refuge in a neighbouring country with his wife and children.
Alleged Interference by Najib
Even behind bars under ISA detention, Raja Petra's website Malaysia Today carried a report detailing allegations on an exchange of text messages between Najib and Shafee Abdullah, the prominent lawyer who represented Abdul Razak Baginda before he was charged with abetting two police officers in the murder of the Altantunya. The SMSes, which went on from 8 November to 2 December 2006, raise some questions over the handling of the murder case and suggests that Najib took a strong interest in the investigation from the beginning.
Alleged Destruction of Evidence
After the murder of Altantuya, Datuk Syed Abdul Rahman Alhabshi the honorary consul of Mongolia in Malaysia contacted Shaaribuu Setev, her father. When Datuk Said asked Shaaribuu for all documents, especially pictures, notebooks, films, computer files that could help with the murder investigation, Shaaribuu did not hesitate. He gave Alhabshi everything he had found in his daughter appartment in Ulan Bator. Alhabshi kept the documents for himself, not giving them to the court in Malaysia. “We thought he was working for us, but actually he is working for the malaysian side”, says Shaaribuu with bitterness. Altantuya’s father then asked the Mongolian foreign ministry to dismiss Datuk Said from his position as an honorary consul. The ministry then summoned the diplomat in Ulan Bator to ask him to explain his behaviour. To justify his attitude, Datuk Said has said to Shaaribuu “Given my high position within Umno, it is not possible for me to oppose Najib Razak”.
