Raja Petra Kamarudin
Bala wanted the balance of the RM5 million that was promised him and he told Hamzah that this would be the price of his third U-turn. Hamzah told Bala, to ‘earn’ this RM5 million he would need to sign a third Statutory Declaration revealing that Sivarasa and Anwar were behind him and had been supporting him financially all these years. Bala would also have to reveal that Suaram had arranged for his trip to Paris and had coached him on what he should say to the French investigators.
I first met private investigator Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal (a.k.a. P. Balasubramaniam) on 2nd July 2008. The day before that, on 1st July 2008, Bala had signed his Statutory Declaration, which was revealed on 3rd July 2008 at the PKR party headquarters during a press conference organised by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Earlier that day, the PKR Member of Parliament for Subang and co-founder of Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram), Sivarasa Rasiah, phoned me and asked me to go over to lawyer M. Puravalen’s house for a meeting regarding the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder.
And that was when I first met Puravalen, Bala and another ex-police officer.
Bala and his ex-police officer colleague related how they too did the same ‘job’ as Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azahar, the two police officers then on trial for Altantuya’s murder. In the presence of Puravalen and Sivarasa, Bala and his ex-police officer friend boasted how they used to bump off criminals and got rid of their bodies. Azilah, Sirul and we were all in the same team, they laughed.
Hence, by Bala’s own admission, Azizah, Sirul and the whole lot of them already had links from way back and did not meet for the first time in front of Abdul Razak Baginda’s house the day Altantuya was murdered, as the impression Bala gave in his Statutory Declaration of 1st July 2008. And they admit that bumping off people and getting rid of their bodies is what they do for a living.
The question that needs to be answered now would be, when Sirul and Azilah, appeared in front of Razak’s house, did Bala know what was going to happen since he knew that these two police officers were members of the ‘hit squad’? He did admit in the meeting in Puravalen’s house that they were all in the same team and did the same type of job -- that is, assassinating people.
Puravalen, who was Razak’s lawyer, are childhood friends and, according to the French National Police, Bala was already involved in the submarine deal since back in 2000. This gives an impression of a very long association indeed. Puravalen is also closely linked to Kalimullah Hassan Masheerul Hassan, the man who attracted a lot of controversy in the days when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was Prime Minister and who was the architect of the equally controversial ECM Libra.
After the meeting in Puravalen’s house, we adjourned for dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant to discuss the following day’s press conference. Sivarasa coached Bala on what he should and should not say at the press conference. Bala was told to avoid answering too many questions from the media and in the event they ask him difficult questions then the lawyers would take those questions. They were worried that Bala might say something wrong and contradict himself.
The next day, on 3rd July 2008, the press conference was held in PKR’s office where Bala’s Statutory Declaration was revealed and, the following day, Bala did a second Statutory Declaration that rescinded everything he said in the first Statutory Declaration.
This was certainly most puzzling. Just a day earlier we had met in Puravalen’s house and Bala and Sivarasa both assured me that everything in that Statutory Declaration was the truth. Hence why the U-turn? So which is the truth, the first Statutory Declaration or the second one?
It was only later that Bala admitted in his Singapore interview that he had been promised RM5 million to do this U-turn. But he also said he was worried about his and his family’s safety if he refused to do a U-turn. They had offered him RM5 million plus safe-passage to India for him and his family if he did the U-turn.
See the Bala interview in Singapore here:
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXX0l1V_Ms4
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZdiTk48400
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tVzHDuyzyE
Bala revealed in that Singapore interview that he was only paid RM700,000 and not RM5 million as originally promised. Bala repeated this in his London press conference plus in his recent three-part interview with Malaysiakini.
“Apparently promised RM5 million for his about-turn, Balasubramaniam said he received a total of RM700,000, in instalments, before the payments eventually stopped,” said Malaysiakini, quoting Bala.
It was when these payments stopped and he realised he was not going to get the full RM5 million as promised that he decided to come out and do his ‘revelation’ as in the three-part video above. However, his price to do this revelation would be that someone would have to support him financially.
Sivarasa brought this matter to the attention of Anwar Ibrahim who arranged for a Chinese tycoon to pay Bala RM20,000 per month. They also paid for Bala’s house in Chennai, India, paid for his car and life insurance, plus for his children’s education in an exclusive international school in Chennai.
Then Bala secretly started negotiating with Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin, an Umno Deputy Minister. Bala was homesick and he wanted safe passage home, although since he ran off to India he had gone back to Malaysia numerous times, as he had admitted. Bala also faced a problem with his visa and India was not prepared to extend his stay in India. Hence he would soon have to get out of the country.
Bala wanted the balance of the RM5 million that was promised him and he told Hamzah that this would be the price of his third U-turn. Hamzah told Bala, to ‘earn’ this RM5 million he would need to sign a third Statutory Declaration revealing that Sivarasa and Anwar were behind him and had been supporting him financially all these years. Bala would also have to reveal that Suaram had arranged for his trip to Paris and had coached him on what he should say to the French investigators.
Bala then went back to the Chinese tycoon and revealed that Umno was prepared to pay him RM5 million if he, again, did a U-turn. Bala wanted to know whether they were prepared to ‘outbid’ Hamzah and offer him more. When the Chinese tycoon discovered that Bala was playing a double game, he stopped the payments to Bala and this made him quite desperate.
When I found out, I leaked the story to my contacts in Umno and threatened to expose this entire arrangement. It would certainly have been my pleasure to expose Hamzah and reveal the arrangement he was attempting with Bala. Hence, even if Bala did sign a third Statutory Declaration, no one would believe it and it would be RM5 million down the drain.
Hamzah was directed to back off and abort the deal with Bala. So, the deal with Hamzah is now off while the Chinese tycoon who was supporting Bala has also stopped all payments to him. Bala was left high and dry and was forced to crawl back to Sivarasa with his tail between his legs.
Sivarasa promised Bala they would arrange for another financier to support him but he would first need to do an interview with Malaysiakini and reveal that Hamzah had tried to ‘bribe’ him. And that resulted in the recent three-part interview in Malaysiakini where Bala revealed ‘The Truth’ about his negotiations with Hamzah regarding the deal to go home to Malaysia.
Bala is literally a gun for hire. However, this time around he has been caught with too many contradictions in his U-turn and counter-U-turn, which he has done once too often. It is no longer clear who Bala’s masters are. It appears, though, that Bala is able to serve many masters at the same time but when these various masters are at odds with one another that is when problems begin to crop up.
Was Balasubramaniam Razak Baginda’s nominee? (part 1)
Was P. Balasubramaniam an accomplice to murder? (part 2)
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