Again in another ALIRAN article :
Questioning arms spending in Malaysia: From Altantuya to Zikorsky dated 21 April 2011
(http://aliran.com/aliran-monthly/2011-issues/2011-2/questioning-arms-spending-in-malaysia-from-altantuya-to-zikorsky/)
The murder of Altantuya and the Scorpene deal
It took the brutal murder of a Mongolian national, Altantuya Shaaribuu, in 2006 to shock the nation and for questions surrounding the purchase of two Scorpene submarines to be asked in this country and in France. Altantuya, a Mongolian translator, was shot in the head on 19 October 2006 and then blown up with C4 explosives, which are available only from Malaysia's military.
According to testimony in the trial, Altantuya accompanied her then-lover, Abdul Razak Baginda, to Paris at a time when Malaysia's Defence Ministry was negotiating through a Kuala Lumpur-based 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. The contract was not competitive.
The Malaysian Ministry of Defence paid 1 billion euros (RM 4.5 billion) to Amaris for the three submarines, for which Perimekar received a payment of 114 million euros (RM510 million). The total cost of the submarines purchase after including infrastructure, maintenance, weapons, etc. has risen beyond RM7 billion. The Deputy Defence Minister, Zainal Abdidin Zin, told Parliament that the money was paid to Perimekar for “coordination and support services” although the fee amounted to a whopping 11 per cent of the sales price for the submarines.
Two former police bodyguards of the then Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister were subsequently found guilty of her grisly murder, it raised suspicion of official cover up since their motives were never divulged to the public nor probed in court. Altantuya had had a relationship with Abdul Razak Baginda, a defence analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre think-tank, with ties to Najib Razak. She had worked as Abdul Razak's translator on a deal to purchase Scorpene submarines from France.