OF SUBMARINE, SEX AND MURDER

However, the potential reopening of an investigation into the murder 12 years ago of the Mongolian model could put Najib into even greater trouble.

The affair centred on allegations that Malaysian officials took huge kickbacks in the 2002 purchase of Scorpene submarines from France when Najib was defence minister.

French submarine maker DCNS is alleged to have paid more than €114m ($134m) in kickbacks to a shell company linked to Abdul Razak Baginda, a close Najib associate who brokered the $1.1bn submarine deal.

Altantuya was Abdul Razak’s mistress and was said to have demanded a cut for translating during negotiations. She was shot dead and her body blown up with military-grade plastic explosives near Kuala Lumpur in 2006.

Two policemen from Najib’s security detail were convicted, and have death sentences hanging over them, but the question of who ordered them to kill the 28-year-old Altantuya has never been answered.

The case sank off the radar after a Malaysian court in 2008 cleared Abdul Razak of abetting the murder, sparking allegations of a huge cover-up.

One of the convicted policemen, Sirul Azhar Umar – who fled to Australia in 2015 and is in an Australian immigration detention centre – told a Malaysian news website on Saturday he was ready to reveal who ordered the murder so long as he walked free.

“I am willing to assist the new government to tell what actually transpired, provided that the government grants me [a] full pardon,” Sirul told Malaysiakini.

Sirul has maintained that he and his accomplice were scapegoats for “important people”, but with family still in Malaysia, he has so far held back revealing what happened.

The Mongolian president, Battulga Khaltmaa, called for justice in a congratulatory message to the 92-year-old Mahathir.

“As president of Mongolia, I pay special attention to the aggravated crime, that on October 18, 2006, a citizen of Mongolia and mother of two children, Shaariibuu Altantuya, was murdered in Malaysia,” he said in the letter to Mahathir.

Mahathir, asked on Monday whether he would consider commuting Sirul’s death sentence, said: “We cannot do everything at the same time at one go.”

Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader who allied with Mahathir to topple Najib, said judges’ reluctance to call key witnesses in the murder case had “made a mockery of the law”.

“The best way is to proffer a new charge and allow for a full hearing of the case,” Anwar told the Australian newspaper following his own release from prison earlier this week after a royal pardon quashed a politically motivated sodomy conviction.

Anwar told AFP on Thursday that Sirul and his accomplice Azilah Hadri should be granted fresh trials.