Yes, I was paid, says man behind video exposé on Sarawak Report’s alleged 1MDB info forgery
(MMO) – “Ramesh said he’s a special officer to Najib and said Najib sent him to see me.” However, sources from the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed with Malay Mail Online when contacted today that there is no special officer by the name of Ramesh Rao Krishnan Naidu.
In a stunning disclosure, former journalist Lester Melanyi admitted today that he had been paid to expose Sarawak Report (SR) and its founder as frauds who forged documents on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal although he maintained that the allegations were true.
Lester had emerged in a video recording recently accusing the London-based website and its British chief, Clare Rewcastle Brown, of conspiring with Malaysia’s opposition lawmakers to publish forged documents on 1MDB.
The former editor of Sarawak Tribune said he was aware of the accusations lobbed against him since his story and the video spread on the Internet.
“Yes, some of the comments are true. I am not ashamed to say that I have received money from certain people,” Lester told Malay Mail Online in an exclusive interview here.
He declined to reveal the amount he had received and its source.
Lester however stuck to his earlier claim that Rewcastle Brown and SR had both falsified their stories on the 1MDB controversy.
He confirmed too that the email revealed by Barisan Nasional strategic communications director Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan was correspondence from Rewcastle Brown.
In the email dated March 1, 2015, the SR founder purportedly wrote: “Thanks! Yes it was quite a job! … Sitting up night after night cleverly forging all those documents!!!!”
However, Lester was unable to produce a copy of the email when asked by Malay Mail Online, saying he had difficulties trying to access his email account since this morning.
“I think someone has blocked or hacked my email,” he said.
