Sarawak Report’s denial of link to Mahathir a ‘blatant lie’
CAGM traces relationship between SR’s editor through her husband to Mahathir via Électricité de France
KUALA LUMPUR: The Citizens for Accountable Governance Malaysia (CAGM) yesterday chastised Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown for denying that her husband Andrew Brown’s was acquainted with former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed.
Calling the denial a ‘blatant lie,’ CAGM chairman Md Zainal Abidin warned her not to ‘manipulate facts for ulterior motives’.
FMT had yesterday reported former journalist Clare as denying CAGM’s earlier claim that her husband had sought Mahathir’s assistance to expand Électricité de France’s (EDF France) energy business in Asia, saying that Brown and Mahathir did not know each other.
She also said that Brown worked for EDF Energy UK (EDF UK), and not EDF France, and that he did not have any involvement in the latter group’s global operations.
In response CAGM chairman Md Zainal Abidin asserted that her denial was intended to “deceive the public and protect her husband.”
He called on her to answer three specific questions –
- Who arranged for her special and exclusive interview with Dr. Mahathir in January 2015?
- Who was the ‘European philanthropist’ whom she said in 2013 was funding Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak?
- What is her relationship with ‘international money chaser’ Ted Greenberg and his wife ‘White House access peddler and lobbyist’ Tammy Haddad?
Zainal insisted that Andrew Brown was indeed involved in EDF France’s global operations and has been reported by the British press as leading “the communications agenda in all of EDF’s nuclear projects”.
He also claimed that EDF Energy UK was wholly owned by EDF France and had a common chairman in Jean Bernard-Levy.
Brown was also said to commute frequently between Paris and London in EDF’s corporate jet with EDF France’s senior executives.
“It is a well-known fact in United Kingdom that Andrew Brown was working with EDF’s board of directors to bring EDF operations into UK when his elder brother Gordon Brown was Prime Minister,” Zainal said, adding that Brown himself had coordinated a 2008 nuclear pact between France and the United Kingdom while his brother held office.
Despite expressing CAGM’s support for Sarawak Report’s initiative to expose 1MDB’s alleged wrongdoings, he reminded her to practice responsible journalism, adding that it was “morally and ethically wrong to hoodwink the Malaysian public in the pretext of fighting for justice and transparency.”
“There is nothing wrong if her husband is ‘friends’ with Dr. Mahathir especially if it is to pursue a business venture,” Zainal’s statement reads.
He, however, added that as an honest journalist, she ought to also investigate and expose Dr. Mahathir in the same manner she has exposed Taib Mahmud, Musa Aman and Najib Razak.
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