Razak Baginda BEBAS

Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- A former adviser to Malaysian Deputy
Prime Minister Najib Razak, on trial for abetting the murder of a
Mongolian woman in 2006, was freed after a judge ruled there
wasn't enough evidence to continue with the case.

  Abdul Razak Baginda, 48, who worked on defense projects with
Najib, escaped the death penalty after Judge Mohd Zaki Md Yasin
acquitted him of the charge.

  ``There is no prima facie case,'' Mohd Zaki said today at
Shah Alam High Court, about 24 kilometers (15 miles) west of
Kuala Lumpur. The trial started in June 2007. The two police
officers charged with killing the 28-year-old interpreter must
make their defense, Mohd Zaki said.

  Opposition leaders have attacked the government over the
case since police found the victim's bone fragments in the jungle
and her family claimed she was shot and then blown apart with
plastic explosives. Today's ruling may ease pressure on Najib,
who denies any connection to the murder, as he prepares to take
over as prime minister in March.

  ``It will take the heat off,'' said Mary Magdaline Pereira,
associate professor of policy studies at Universiti Teknologi
Mara in Selangor, Malaysia. ``There's one less thing he has to
worry about.''

  Abdul Razak was head of the Malaysian Strategic Research
Centre, a Kuala Lumpur-based organization that was founded by
Najib in 1993. The deputy premier, who was also defense minister
when the trial started, has denied allegations that he and his
wife were involved in the case.

  Blogger's Assertions

  Malaysian blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin in June this year
said in a statutory declaration at the Kuala Lumpur High Court
that Najib's wife, Rosmah Mansor, witnessed the placing of
plastic explosives on Altantuya's body in October 2006. Najib
called the allegation ``garbage.''

  In July, private investigator P. Balasubramaniam said in a
statutory declaration that Najib had an affair with Altantuya. He
retracted the statement a day later and then went missing. Najib
said he never met the Mongolian.

  This month, the Malaysia Today Web site, run by blogger Raja
Petra, published an exchange of mobile-phone text messages,
purportedly between Najib and Abdul Razak's then-lawyer, in which
the pair discuss possible charges against Abdul Razak. Najib has
denied any abuse of power. He didn't deny or confirm the
authenticity of the messages.
 
In 2007, as Malaysian police investigated the killing, Abdul
Razak said he had an affair with the woman, before her requests
for financial help turned to extortion.

  Abdul Razak, who is married, said in an affidavit in January
2007 that he met the interpreter across the world, in locations
including France, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. When
Altantuya traveled to Malaysia to see him, he asked for police
patrols around his home, he said.

  Altantuya's family sued the Malaysian government for 100
million ringgit ($28 million) in a civil suit filed on June 6,
2007, which claimed the two police officers shot the woman dead
and blew up her body.

  According to the suit, Altantuya was raised in St.
Petersburg, educated in Beijing, and was fluent in Russian,
English, Chinese and Japanese. She needed 36,000 ringgit a year
to treat her four-year-old son in Beijing, the suit said.