Editor's note: On April 16, Malaysiakini had published an article on a letter of demand by Muhammad Shaahidullah Shayaa and Berkshire Media Sdn Bhd to Clare Rewcastle-Brown without immediately seeking the latter's comments.
Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown has disputed claims made by data analytics consultant Muhammad Shaahidullah Shayaa, better known as Shahid Shayaa, that the latter and his company Berkshire Media had no links to the defunct SCL Group.
In a statement to Malaysiakini, Rewcastle-Brown (above) said Shaahidullah's company Berkshire Media Sdn Bhd had publicly admitted in January that they were involved in SCL Group's unsuccessful pitch to Petronas in 2014.
"That pitch includes biographies of the team behind the project including that of this litigant, Shahid Shayaa, who was attributed the senior role of 'Project Director' in this proposal submitted by SCL group.
"The SCL biography further states that Shahid Shayaa, a former operative in Najib (Abdul) Razak's 'Permandu Unit' and founder of Berkshire Communications (Berkshire Media's former name prior to 2013), had partnered with SCL to establish SCL Malaysia," said Rewcastle-Brown.
On Jan 6, Berkshire Media released a statement which stated that it had no knowledge of SCL Group and its subsidiary Cambridge Analytica's (CA) involvement in Malaysia beyond 2014.
"SCL Commercial unit came to us in 2014 to expand its services in Malaysia and the region...
"We have no control or knowledge over SCL or Cambridge Analytica's involvement in Malaysia beyond the year 2014, or for any GE14 election campaigns," it said.
Although Petronas had twice denied ever dealing with SCL Group or CA, Berkshire Media said its "joint proposal" with SCL Commercial - believed to be an SCL Group subsidiary - did not materialise due to the client's "budget constraints".
SCL Group's purported proposal to Petronas was covered in four articles published on Sarawak Report in 2018 at a time when SCL Group was being investigated by British authorities.
The company came under intense media scrutiny in March 2018 over its subsidiary CA's role in acquiring account data of 87 million Facebook users.
On Feb 19, Shaahidullah's lawyers issued a demand of RM15 million in damages from Rewcastle-Brown over the four articles.
It was alleged that the articles had implied that Shaahidullah and Berkshire Media were "clearly involved" in "manipulating data to help the BN government" by drawing comparisons to what CA did in the US.
"Our clients' had no connection or link to the companies like SCL, CA and/or the purported Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal," wrote lawyer David Gurupatham in the letter of demand.
Rewcastle-Brown said the four articles' objective was to reveal BN's links with SCL Group and only mentioned Shaahidullah in passing in one article.
"Shaahidullah has no legitimate claim against Sarawak Report on this matter either because none of the four articles about SCL that he complains about (which Shaahidullah was only mentioned in passing once) allege or imply that he was involved in SCL's work on GE14.
"To the contrary, we reported who the new manager of SCL Malaysia was at that time," she said.
Rewcastle-Brown said Shaahidullah's claim that he had no links to SCL was "demonstrably false" as he was indeed a former manager and founder of SCL Malaysia.
She speculated that the release of the letter of demand could be part of a hidden agenda to undermine her credibility as a journalist because of her "truthful reporting on 1MDB and other matters". - Mkini
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