Malaysia's No. 2 leader is fighting efforts by opposition politician Anwar Ibrahim to tie him to a high-profile murder, as the rivals square off in a bitter electoral campaign.
Anwar, himself a former deputy prime minister, has repeatedly claimed in recent days that Najib Razak is corrupt, and has tried to link Najib to the murder of a Mongolian woman.
Najib denied any wrongdoing in a speech late on Saturday, insisting that Altantuya Shaariibuu's murder case "has nothing to do with me" and accusing the opposition of being "bankrupt of ideas," the New Straits Times newspaper reported yesterday.
Anwar told supporters late Friday in the semi-rural constituency of Ijok, 50km northwest of Kuala Lumpur, that he possessed "knowledge of many things about Najib," and threatened to "reveal more when the general elections arrive."
Video footage of Anwar's speech was posted on several opposition Web sites.
The conflict comes while both men are leading rival factions in fierce campaigning to win a state legislative seat in Ijok in an April 28 by-election, which has drawn widespread attention amid speculation that the government will call general elections by early next year.
Anwar accused Najib, who is also defense minister, of "deceiving the public" about government defense contracts, and suggested that Najib might also be connected to last October murder of Shaariibuu, a 28-year-old Mongolian who had an eight-month-affair with top political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, who has close ties to Najib.
"Who ordered the murder?" Anwar said. "We want to ask Najib, did you know about it? Did you know Altantuya?"
Najib has rejected the taunts by Anwar, who held the No. 2 position under former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad for five years until Mahathir fired him in 1998 over allegations of graft and homosexuality.
Abdul Razak has been charged with abetting the murder of Shaariibuu, who was believed to have been shot and her body blown up with military-grade explosives. Two policemen are charged with carrying out the murder, and their joint trial is scheduled to begin June 4. If convicted, all three face the death penalty.
In the past week, Najib has said that he too knows of skeletons in Anwar's closet.
"If I want to talk, I can," Najib said on Wednesday. "However I do not want to embarrass him because we know he has a wife and children."
After Anwar was fired by Mahathir, he was tried and convicted of abuse of power and sodomy, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was freed in 2004 after Malaysia's top court overturned the sodomy conviction.
Anwar has said the charges were fabricated to keep him from challenging Mahathir, who retired in 2003 and handed power to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
The by-election in Ijok, which pits Abdullah's National Front ruling coalition against Anwar's opposition People's Justice Party, is considered a warm-up for both sides to gauge their preparedness for general elections, as well as a test of Anwar's popularity after nearly a decade in political limbo.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS