The Empire strikes back

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jul 22, 2015

According to my deep throat in the Thai police, the names of the people who are on the list to be investigated, with possibly even warrants of arrest to be issued to bring them back to Thailand for prosecution, are Clare Rewcastle Brown, Tong Kooi Ong, Ho Kay Tat, Tony Pua, Sufi Yusof, Kamal Sadiqque and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Well, it looks like the cat is now out of the bag. The Royal Thai Police Commissioner, Lt Gen Prawut Thavornsiri, held a press conference at 1.00pm today in Bangkok and confirmed some very damaging evidence. (SEE THE NEWS REPORT HERE).

Meanwhile, yesterday, someone who is said to use to work for Sarawak Report had his statement recorded by the Royal Malaysian Police in Kuching. And what he revealed (SEE HERE) is also very damaging.

Putting all the pieces together, it appears like there was a very elaborate conspiracy to bring down Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak through a so-called expose involving 1MDB, which appears to have been a fraudulent allegation after all.

According to Lt Gen Prawut, Xavier Andre Justo has admitted to meeting “a very important person from a Malaysian opposition party”. While under Thai law the name of this person cannot be revealed until he is arrested and charged in court, Lt Gen Prawut more or less confirmed who it was.

“We have their identities and it would be made public in open court when applications for arrest warrants are submitted…their identities have been made public in your country (Malaysia),” said Lt Gen Prawut.

So not only do the Thai authorities know who these people are but arrest warrants are going to be issued and most likely Interpol’s help would be sought to arrest these people to bring them back to Thailand for prosecution.

Last month, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that Tong Kooi Ong, who owns the The Edge media group, was issued a warning for allegedly publishing incorrect news. “He must take responsibility for publishing incorrect news, which should have been verified prior to publication,” said Zahid.

There is reason to believe that the person the Thai police meant but could not mention by name at this juncture, until the arrest warrant is issued and he is charged in court, is Tong Kooi Ong.

Lt Gen Prawut further said that Justo denied tampering with the documents that were eventually sold to a certain news outlet in the UK. “He didn’t make any changes to the documents and sent the original documents as digital copies.”

When asked if Justo had sold the documents to Sarawak Report, Lt Gen Prawut said, “Everyone knows which news organisation I am talking about,” more or less saying ‘yes’ without actually saying so.

Basically, Justo confesses to data stealing and blackmail but not to the allegation of document tampering or fraud. He also confesses that he sold the documents to Sarawak Report and that if the documents were tampered then it was not him who did it and he suggests that it was the buyer of those documents who did so.

The Thai police are also pursuing the possibility of money laundering and is looking into shell companies and bank accounts that were set up in Singapore and the UAE that were used to channel money to Justo. An amount of US$2 million is the figure being mentioned that was illegally smuggled into Thailand to pay Justo.

It seems some of these people have had several meetings in Bangkok and Singapore to discuss and negotiate the purchase of this stolen information and it was said that a Purchasing Contract had been signed with Justo in Singapore.

“We have confiscated Justo’s personal computer and we have managed to find documents and information pertaining to their meeting at a hotel in Singapore (Fullerton Hotel). Most of this information was found from Justo’s email correspondence and WhatsApp chat records,” said Lt Gen Prawut.

So there you are, on the eve of Hari Raya the Empire strikes back. And is that why Najib was super-cool and did not seem perturbed about the move to use the 1MDB ‘scandal’ to oust him?

Anyway, as Tun Dr Mahathir and the opposition said, Najib must be presumed guilty until and unless he can prove his innocence (Dr M: Duit 1MDB lesap, kecuali terbukti sebaliknya http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/300036).

I suppose, using this same rule, all those others implicated in various crimes of data stealing, fraud, money-laundering, criminal conspiracy, and so on, must also be presumed guilty until and unless they can prove their innocence.

And that opportunity may soon come when the Royal Thai Police issues a number of warrants of arrest against these people and they are brought back to Thailand to be charged in court. They will then be able to try to prove they are innocent of all these allegations.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK