Withdraw arrest warrant against Sarawak Report founder, DAP tells Putrajaya

DAP's Tony Pua calls for the withdrawal of an arrest warrant against Sarawak Report founder Clare Rewcastle-Brown after the documents she published were found to be authentic. – The Malaysian Insider filepic, October 17, 2015.

Putrajaya must withdraw the arrest warrant issued against Sarawak Report founder Clare Rewcastle-Brown following confirmation that none of the documents relating to alleged misappropriation by 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) leaked to the whistleblower site were doctored, DAP said today.

Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said that with the leaked minutes from 1MDB's board of directors meeting proving the authenticity of the documents, the failure to withdraw the arrest warrant would show that the action was politically motivated.

"With the evidence now clearly showing that Sarawak Report had published the truth without any form of tampering, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) must withdraw the arrest warrant against Clare for the frivolous and trumped-up charge of a conspiracy to topple a democratically elected government," he said in a statement today.

 "The failure of the IGP to withdraw the warrant will only serve to prove that their actions are politically motivated, contrary to their claims of being independent and professional."

In August, police said they had obtained a warrant of arrest from the Kuala Lumpur High Court for Rewcastle-Brown and would begin the process of obtaining help from Interpol and Aseanapol to facilitate her detention.

Rewcastle-Brown, who is based in the UK, would be investigated under the Penal Code, related to activities that are detrimental to parliamentary democracy, police said.

Rewcastle-Brown has been accused of using allegedly false or tampered information in Sarawak Report's exposes on 1MDB, obtained from former PetroSaudi International director Xavier Andre Justo, who is serving a three-year sentence in Thailand for blackmailing his former employer.

The UK-based website has published numerous exposes on 1MDB and one of its recent reports was based on the minutes of a 1MDB board meeting on January 12 this year.

Based on the minutes, Sarawak Report accused 1MDB president and group executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy of lying about repatriated investments from overseas.

Arul Kanda later confirmed that Sarawak Report's latest expose had been based on authentic minutes of the troubled firm's board meetings, but denied the website's claim that he was a liar over cash that was redeemed from an overseas investment.

Instead, he said there had been a misunderstanding, which he then clarified to the board and 1MDB's shareholder, the Finance Ministry.

Pua said today that the minutes, dated October 3, 2015, proved that the attempts by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his ministers to taint the leaked information and documents were "clear-cut lies".

Najib is also the finance minister and chairman of 1MDB's advisory board.

"The minutes revealed that the board of directors were furious with the top executives of 1MDB for signing the joint venture agreement (between 1MDB and PetroSaudi) in reckless haste, and without any substantive due diligence, the highly suspicious speed of preparation of the valuation report, which was prepared by Edward Morse and most damningly, misappropriating US$700 million to an account unauthorised and unrelated to the joint venture.

"The board was clearly distrustful of the valuation report prepared by Morse, as it was prepared in less than a week although the board was previously informed that such valuation report would only be ready by March 2010.

"The board was so upset with the report that they demanded a separate independent valuer to value the assets," Pua said, quoting the leaked minutes.

Sarawak Report had previously revealed that the US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) was transferred to the bank account of Good Star Limited in Switzerland, which is controlled by Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, who is Najib's close associate.

- TMI