Sarawak Report fails to prove Najib stole 1MDB’s money
Why was Sarawak Report not able to prove that Najib paid Hadi a RM90 million bribe or that Najib stole 1MDB’s money? All Sarawak Report needed to do was to show the court the evidence and convince the judge that Najib paid Hadi a RM90 million bribe or that Najib stole 1MDB’s money. After all, Sarawak Report has been claiming these last three years that it has tons of evidence to prove that Najib stole 1MDB’s money. So now is the time to show that evidence and convince the court the evidence exists.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
This was what Sarawak Report wrote:
A London High Court Judge today set a provisional date for a full trial of Hadi Awang’s case against Sarawak Report for ten days lasting from 1st-12th April 2019.
Justice Dingemans said that he felt there were many inter-related and over-lapping issues, including the public interest surrounding the articles written by Sarawak Report and Sarawak Report’s rights to report on political matter, that would inevitably impinge on the issue of whether or not Hadi had grounds to bring the case in the first place.
Political parties cannot sue in the UK and Sarawak Report had petitioned for a quick preliminary trial to determine whether it was really Hadi or PAS who was behind the case to silence Sarawak Report on the issue of money flowing from UMNO into the political party.
This would have speeded up and simplified the process, possibly ending it within a matter of a few short weeks and cutting down the expense of the trial by several million ringgit (the cost of libel trials in the UK is high).
However, Hadi had resisted the speedy resolution and the judge agreed that Sarawak Report’s counter-claim for harassment and defamation also complicated matters and he said he felt that there were many aspects to the matter which would in the end make it easier to reach a judgement if all the issues were before the court at the same time.
This includes Sarawak Report’s ‘stay application’ to halt Hadi’s claim on the basis of abuses by parties linked to the plaintiff and also threats to witnesses in Malaysia.
Hadi has given Sarawak Report a second slap
As usual, this is the normal Sarawak Report style of playing with words. But what in a nutshell is Sarawak Report trying to say? Can they sum it all up in one sentence instead of using 260 words to say something meaningless?
The essence of the whole thing is Sarawak Report submitted a 55-page statement of defence and counter-claim and the judge kicked out 40 of those pages leaving just 15 pages. And those 40 pages are Sections 25 and 26 of Sarawak Report’s statement of defence and counter-claim. By striking out Section 26, which also refers to Section 25, essentially both Section 25 and Section 26 are removed.
READ HERE: FINAL-DEFENCE-AND-COUNTER-CLAIM
To put it another way, all the meat has been removed leaving only the bones. And what Sarawak Report has left by way of defence is public interest and fair comment. All the rest have been flushed down the toilet.
So, what is left of Sarawak Report’s defence and counter-claim? Basically nothing.
If you were to look at Sections 25 and 26 in pages 13 to 53, it is all about 1MDB, how rich certain PAS leaders are, and various allegations against Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and PAS since the last 15 years. But then the issue is Sarawak Report alleged that Najib paid PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang a bribe of RM90 million. So, what has Sections 25 and 26 in pages 13 to 53 got to do with the RM90 million bribe?
Nothing!
Sarawak Report’s ‘defence of truth’ shot to pieces
Sections 25 and 26 in pages 13 to 53 are irrelevant and are not related to the RM90 million bribe allegation. It is not evidence to prove the allegation. So why have those 40 pages been inserted into the statement of defence and counter-claim?
It is an attempt by Sarawak Report to make their document thick in the hope of impressing the judge that they have a case. But the judge was not impressed.
Sarawak Report was hoping to ride on the ‘Defence of Truth’ argument but that has now been struck out with cost to Hadi once Section 26 was struck out. Section 26 basically deals with the allegations of the ‘misdeeds’ of PAS leaders.
Section 25 deals with Najib’s alleged misdeeds concerning 1MDB and many more and that, too, has been struck out. Sarawak Report was not able to prove that Najib committed any misdeeds concerning 1MDB and so on.
Sarawak Report was given a chance to prove what it said but failed to do so on 30th April 2018
Sarawak Report then withdrew the purported audio recording of Nik Abduh saying PAS leaders did take money from UMNO. And this was supposed to be Sarawak Report’s ‘Golden Bullet’ that was going to nail Najib and PAS. But it turned out to be blank after all.
Sarawak Report’s application to strike out Hadi’s suit was also rejected by the court.
Sarawak Report’s application to have a hearing to determine if the article refers to Hadi was rejected.
The total costs awarded to Hadi was £41,400 or RM227,700.
Sarawak Report has let Mahathir down by failing to prove that Najib stole 1MDB’s money
Sarawak Report is trying to give the impression that the case has just started and is far from over. The truth is, Sarawak Report’s entire case has been demolished. The most important part of their defence is Sections 25 and 26, which is related to Najib, 1MDB, the wealth of PAS leaders, and so on. Without that, Sarawak Report has nothing left and their defence rests entirely on public interest and fair comment. But what about the evidence that Najib paid Hadi a RM90 million bribe or that Najib stole 1MDB’s money?
That is no longer part of the trial.
Why was Sarawak Report not able to prove that Najib paid Hadi a RM90 million bribe or that Najib stole 1MDB’s money? All Sarawak Report needed to do was to show the court the evidence and convince the judge that Najib paid Hadi a RM90 million bribe or that Najib stole 1MDB’s money. After all, Sarawak Report has been claiming these last three years that it has tons of evidence to prove that Najib stole 1MDB’s money. So now is the time to show that evidence and convince the court the evidence exists.
But Sarawak Report was not able to do that and pages 13 to 53 were stuck out, thereby leaving Sarawak Report with nothing left by way of defence and counter-claim.
This is a big blow to Sarawak Report. For more than three years they have been claiming they have evidence that Najib stole 1MDB’s money — just like for 20 years Ezam Mohd Nor claimed he has enam kotak or six boxes of evidence of Mahathir’s corrupt acts.
Sarawak Report‘s allegations have ended up like Ezam’s six boxes of evidence against Mahathir: disappeared into thin air
Until today, Ezam’s enam kotak has refused to appear after 20 years of waiting. And, on 30th April 2018, Sarawak Report’s countless boxes of evidence that Najib stole 1MDB’s money also refused to appear.
This was Sarawak Report’s golden opportunity to prove to Malaysia that what they have been writing regarding Najib and 1MDB since 2014 is true. Sarawak Report had the chance to prove they are not lying. But on 30th April 2018 they failed to do that. The court struck out Sections 25 and 26 in pages 13 to 53 and that ends the whole story of Najib stealing 1MDB’s money.
Tamatlah riwayat Sarawak Report dan cerita dongeng tentang Najib curi duit 1MDB. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
