Emails are not the cause of 1MDB’s financial troubles, but we will defer to the home minister

Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has warned that The Edge could be suspended if it continues to publish emails between 1MDB and PetroSaudi International. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, June 27, 2015.

There are now allegations that emails published by The Edge in recent months about certain dealings between 1MDB and PetroSaudi International were doctored and forged.

This follows the arrest of a former top PetroSaudi executive in Thailand on accusations that he extorted his ex-employer.

Certain media have also quoted unnamed security experts as saying the emails were tampered with or forged.

As a consequence, Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has issued a warning that The Edge could be suspended.

We have published some of the emails since the start of the year to accompany reports on the dealings between 1MDB and PetroSaudi that date back to 2009 and 2011. Very little was known about what had happened back then and those emails and other documents helped us piece together the chain of events surrounding 1MDB’s US$1.83 billion deals with PetroSaudi.

We were not cavalier in our approach and we only published what we believed were authentic after very careful consideration. Throughout these past five months, no one has challenged the authenticity of the emails and we have offered our help to all the authorities looking into the problems at 1MDB, including passing them what we have.

As a media company, we are guided by the principle that we are here to serve the public interest. And with over RM40 billion of public money at stake, 1MDB and its struggles to service its massive debts is the single most important public issue we face today.

What is a fact is that the emails ARE NOT the source of 1MDB’s problems.

That lies elsewhere and, hopefully, we can get to the bottom of it through the various ongoing investigations.

Nonetheless, we will defer to the Home Minister and will not refer to the emails again in any of our reports until the air is cleared about them.

The Edge welcomes any comprehensive investigation into this matter and will offer assistance to any authorities tasked with verifying the authenticity of the information we previously used.