‘RM90 million for PAS’ claim a widespread suspicion, says Sarawak Report

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Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown has clarified that the claim that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had wooed PAS with RM90 million was merely a "widespread suspicion".

This is after PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man earlier today cried foul over the allegation, which was published in a commentary on Sarawak Report last Saturday.

However, Brown said she reported the suspicion as such on her website, and insisted that such allegations had indeed been widespread.

“PAS ought not misquote me, although they will not be the first politicians to indulge in denouncing things that have not actually been said […]

“I can testify that view is indeed widespread, since several well-connected Malaysians have observed this reckoning to me. Why would PAS imagine otherwise? It is what comes of suddenly cosying up to a party like the present Umno led by the 'King of Cash', as many within PAS have warned it would.

“Najib is world-famously corrupt and has made the payments of large sums to key allies his distinguishing political feature.

“So anyone who suddenly gets close must accept that suspicion will follow,” she told Malaysiakini when contacted.

She said that while PAS leaders may have been motivated only by religious reason, they have associated themselves with ‘a known thief’ in doing so.

Najib, who had been at the centre of the 1MDB scandal, has consistently denied wrongdoing and was previously exonerated by attorney-general Mohd Apandi Ali.

Sarawak Report had claimed in its commentary on Saturday:

“He (Najib) has gone on to ‘woo’ the PAS Islamic party away from the opposition coalition in the normal way he woos - RM90 million is widely reckoned to have flowed into the top echelons of PAS in recent months.”

Tuan Ibrahim said the claim that PAS leaders had received RM90 million from Najib is false, and the party intends to take legal action over the allegation. -Mkini