SHAH ALAM: Private investigator P. Balasubramaniam has confirmed that Nasir Safar (picture) was at the scene when policemen abducted Mongolian beauty Altantuya Shaariibuu, according to his lawyer, Americk Sidhu.

Sidhu, in an email to the Pakatan Rakyat weekly Suara Keadilan, said the private eye — known throughout Malaysia by his nickname Bala — made the connection recently when he saw a photograph of the former special aide to the Prime Minister posted on a blog.

Nasir was thrust into notoriety last week after delivering a talk that many have described as full of racial slurs. He has had to resign over the incident, which embarrassed premier Najib Abdul Razak’s 1Malaysia project.

Both Bala and Sidhu live outside Malaysia for fear of persecution by the Najib regime, to which the police force, the attorney-general and the judiciary are widely suspected to be fiercely loyal.

In the now famous statutory declaration that he made in July 2008, Bala said he was at the scene when police took Altantuya away in a car from outside the home of her Malaysian lover, Abdul Razak Baginda, then an aide of Najib.

A few minutes before Altantuya was taken into the car, he said, “a blue Proton Saga, driven by a Malay man, passed by slowly. The driver’s window had been wound down and the driver was looking at us.”

Bala did not know then who the Malay man was, but was able to describe his facial features to police when he was interrogated. According to Sidhu, the interrogators told his client the man was just one of Abdul Razak’s neighbours.

However, Bala instantly recognised Nasir as the man in the blue car when he saw his picture on the Internet, Sidhu said.