Anwar's ex-aide slams portal for trying to ruin Rosmah's UK visit

Muhammad Rahimi Osman, a former aide of PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, launched a broadside against whistleblower portal Sarawak Report for supposedly trying to ruin prime minister's wife Rosmah Mansor's visit to the United Kingdom.

Muhammad Rahimi took issue with Sarawak Report urging Cambridge University and the Royal Society to diligently look at Rosmah's source of funding before accepting any contributions.

He claimed that the  Permata students accompanying Rosmah on the trip stand to lose out if the institutions that they will be visiting, buy into the portal's claims.

"Sarawak Report has not remained silent. They published, with ill-intention, that Rosmah's delegation was supposedly sponsored using funds laundered from 1MDB.

"By publishing such a malicious article, they are trying to make the universities distance themselves from Permata and Rosmah.

"If the universities are incited by (Sarawak Report editor) Clare Rewcastle-Brown, then it would be a big loss to the students, as well as Malaysians," he said.

Rosmah is the patron of Permata, a state-sponsored early childhood programme.

She arrived in the UK with 32 Permata students and six teachers on Thursday and will be there until next Wednesday.

According to Bernama, Rosmah is set to deliver a speech at a function jointly organised with the Royal Society of London.

She is also set to sign Letters of Intent with Cambridge University and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

Muhammad Rahimi came into the public spotlight in 2010 when he accused PKR operatives of trying to recruit him to implicate Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and wife Rosmah in a conspiracy against Anwar.

Muhammad Rahimi was part of Anwar's staff between 2007 and 2008.

He resurfaced earlier this year under the banner of Pertubuhan Gerakan Transformasi Nasional 50 to attack Ezam Mohd Noor, another of Anwar's former aides who had defected to Umno and then to the opposition again. -Mkini