Clare Rewcastle’s donors actually giving Hadi money

“Pakatuns are going to keep enriching Hadi and his lawyers, as Ms. Rewcastle is bent on delaying the trial past the 14^th general election (GE14) just to prevent Malaysians from discovering what I have been saying all this while – that all the evidences she claims to possess are nothing short of fabrications wrapped around conjectures and hearsay, none of which are substantiated, none of which hold in the court of law”

THE THIRD FORCE

Clare Rewcastle Brown has taken you guys for a jolly good ride.

Last Thursday, the disgraced British journalist failed to secure an extension from a London Court in a defamation suit brought against her by PAS president Dato’ Seri Abdul Hadi Awang. The suit pertains allegations that Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak solicited political favours from Hadi by bribing the latter RM90 million.

The court’s decision followed Ms. Rewcastle’s repeated failure to file and serve her defense right up to the 30^th of August 2017, a deadline stipulated within a court order dated the 2^nd of August 2017 (see below). Ironically, this is the same lady who spent close to two years telling Malaysians that she had truckloads of “smoking gun evidences” to prove the Prime Minister of Malaysia was corrupt and criminally perverse.

But the evidence has yet to surface.

Her first shot at redemption came during a Case Management hearing held on the 6^th of August 2017. On that day, the Sarawak Report chief editor asked the judge to fix £800,000 (about RM4.5 million) as the amount Hadi needed to deposit with the court as security. In her defence, she told the court that that Hadi, being a Malaysian, could default in payments should she win the case.

But that didn’t go down well with Hadi’s lawyers, who cited the fact that she was at liberty to sue him in Malaysia should a default occur. Hadi’s lawyers further contended that their client voluntarily offered to deposit RM80,000 with the court, an amount they insisted was “sufficient and uncontroversial.” It was then that a discontented Ms. Rewcastle dropped a ‘bomb’, telling the judge that the Malaysian judiciary and its Prime Minister were “corrupt and complicit with Hadi.”

Can you imagine this lady?

Not only did that blow her chance to redeem her dignity, she probably infuriated the judge, who made absolutely clear that the court could not blindly label a sovereign state (or its judiciary) corrupt without sound evidence. The judge then fixed £14,350 (about RM78,000) as the sum Hadi needed to pay the court before ruling that Ms. Rewcastle needed to remit costs worth 15,000 pounds (about RM85,000).

And that’s just a fraction of the £700,000 (about RM3.8 million) Hadi’s legal cost is anticipated to snowball to. Still, did Malaysians ever wonder how the Sarawak Report chief editor managed to pay the court the 15,000 pounds? Do you have any idea who forked that money out to help her stuff Hadi’s lawyer’s pockets with dough?

Well, you did.

That is, if you’re the typical Pakatun (Pakatan Harapan apologist) who is ever ready to bend over whenever Dr. Mahathir Mohamad desires you to. Yes you, the guy who blames PAS for breaking Pakatan Rakyat up and thinks it was Hadi who botched the Rafizi-architected Kajang Move.

Yes, you!

On the 25^th of July 2017, Ms. Rewcastle gallantly announced that Sarawak Report raised over £30,000 (about RM160,000) to ‘defend’ itself against Hadi’s suit. That’s 15,000 pounds in costs already paid to Hadi’s lawyer, and another 30,000 pounds she paid her own lawyers just to try and get Hadi to deposit £800,000 with the court.

Now, we’re talking about 30,000 pounds in hard-earned taxpayer money that went straight down the drain, given that Hadi was eventually allowed a £14,350 deposit. And we haven’t even taken into account the £700,000 she will likely need to raise to pay Hadi’s lawyer should the PAS president win the case.

Tell me, who do we have to thank for all this?

Why you, the Pakatuns, of course, for helping Ms. Rewcastle enrich Hadi’s lawyers by taking the London court on a jolly good roller-coaster ride.

Interesting, is it not?

Even more interesting is the fact that Pakatuns are going to keep enriching Hadi and his lawyers, as Ms. Rewcastle is bent on delaying the trial past the 14^th general election (GE14) just to prevent Malaysians from discovering what I have been saying all this while – that all the evidences she claims to possess are nothing short of fabrications wrapped around conjectures and hearsay, none of which are substantiated, none of which hold in the court of law.

Do you now see how this lady is milking money from her own supporters for a lost cause?

Note: This article was edited at 6.55am to correct a factual error