Malaysian Deputy Prime Ministers and Spies

* With apologies to Sdr Rashid Gows and and family.

KUALA LUMPUR: What makes a Malaysian Deputy Prime Ministers such a hot target for foreign intelligence agencies? First and foremost, there is no guarantee that every DPM will make it to the hot seat. Just asked Sdr Musa Hitam and Anwar Ibrahim.

Perhaps they have already got a traitor working with the PM’s office that they also need a fix on his deputy and potential successor.

Why are we asking these question?

The Antaltuya murder trial, of course. The wily old fox, Karpal Singh has managed to place the current DPM in the trial by getting a witness to say that she had seen a photograph of Najib, Abdul Razak Baginda and Antaltuya together.

No matter that the witness could not produce the picture, Karpal had managed to create a bunch of speculation on the matter, despite the denials of Najib that he had never met or knew Altantuya.

Malaysian Defence says until the picture is produced and verified, what was spoken in court is pretty useless, just a good evidence for the conspiracy theorists.

Like those theorists, Malaysian Defence has a theory of its own.

One that these blog had touched before, that Antaltuya was a honey trap designed by a foreign intelligence agency to ensnare a close confidant of a Malaysian Deputy PM.

One might ask why the DPM and not the PM aides, then? Simply that the revelations had been made on those in the DPM circle only. Perhaps it is too embarrassing to reveal to the world that one member of the PM inner circle was working with the enemy. Another reason, perhaps, that there had been more DPMs in Malaysian history than the premier (six in 50 years).

Through-out the years, at least three Malaysian DPM have been the alleged target of spy agencies. In the 70s, an aide of Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Siddiq Ghows, was accused of collaborating with the Soviet KGB.

In the 80s when Ghafar Baba took over as the DPM, rumours circulated that one of his aide failed a Special Branch background check. The aide is Kal,imullah Hassan, now currently the boss of NST.

No facts have been released on the failed background apart from the rumours (since NST has initiated legal action against another blogger, I would not reproduce the allegations)

During the tumultuous period of reformasi, another spy allegation surfaced. This time it was against Munawar Anees, a close confidant of Anwar. It is claimed that Munawar , a Pakistani-born, naturalised American was working with the CIA.

And now the Abdul Razak/Altantuya affair. Some might say that Malaysian Defence is grasping on straws, making up the spy connection.

Perhaps. But one must agree that Abdul Razak was an attractive target indeed.

He is not only a power broker – he is also rumoured to be the local agent for the Scorpene submarine deal and at the same time a close confidant of a powerful Malaysian politician.

An attractive target indeed for any spy agency in the region. The only fault was in the trap.

–Malaysian Defence