The Incredible Lengths The Culprits Behind 1MDB Will Go To Try To Discredit Sarawak Report

Liar's, Forgers And Paid PR People Posing As Activists - Black PR Against Sarawak Report Exposed

11 Nov 2015

Reproduced With Permission

Same picture different ID! Ashraf Rossli, the newspaper photo of the Malaysian student famous for surviving a gang attack in London

The recent PR campaign against Sarawak Report, supposedly supported by a team of enthusiastic Tweeters and Facebook fans, has accused this writer of being a “liar” and a “forger” and of being a paid “activist posing as a journalist”.

Yet our research, together with the UK’s Independent newspaper, into the anonymous outfit behind this campaign, has shown that these descriptions perfectly fit the accusers instead.

The Independent has today published their investigation and featured our complaint against Facebook and Twitter, for taking inadequate steps to protect victims from this kind of abuse.

Because, it is not only Sarawak Report that is being defamed and abused by this expensively commissioned ‘Black PR’ campaign.

A whole series of innocent and vulnerable people are also being exploited, because their pictures and identities are being stolen and used to create fake characters in a clear act of forgery and lies.

These include Ashraf Rossli (above) a Malaysian student, who gained world sympathy when he was robbed on camera during the London riot. Ashraf is depicted by these hired forgers as a fictitious character called Sam Woo, who falsely claims in his tweets that Sarawak Report removes comments by people who disagree with its reports.

“Wow! Post a question on the sawarak report and if they don’t agree with you it gets deleted. I thought they were about transparency?!” [sam woo @Malayobserver2]

Philip Goodeve-Docker – tragically lost to his family, but now cynically utilised to create a fake attacker against SR called ‘Harry Draker”

Further victims of this form of identity theft and abuse even include people who have died and reputable individuals, whom these fake Twitter accounts associate with seedy call girls and dodgy ‘followers’.

Indeed, as the UK’s Independent newspaper has today reported to an outraged British public, these scammers have dragged in all manner of innocent people into their vendetta against Sarawak Report, in retaliation for our reporting on 1MDB and the corrupt petroleum company PetroSaudi.

A British Arctic explorer, Philip Goodeve-Docker, who recently died tragically after becoming stranded in appalling icy conditions, for example, has been reinvented as a banker named Harry Drakeford, allegedly keen to promote an anonymous defamatory Facebook site called The Real Clare Rewcastle, which accuses Sarawak Report of lying and forging.

 

Unfortunately the real man in this picture has died, so the opinions 

are cruelly faked. Philip’s father, Nigel Goodeve-Docker, told 

The Independent “It’s very distasteful. It is cheap to use the 

photograph of a dead person who can’t complain.”

Numerous other innocent people have had their photos snatched off from websites and then attached to fictitious characters and Twitter accounts, according to the research by ourselves and The Independent.

Photos have even been changed for the same ID, altering them overnight to a completely different race or age group, while keeping the very same name and identity!

In one case a deceased American named Samuel Everett Morehead was revived to form a Twitter account under Sam Everett, with an unaccountable interest in Malaysia and SR.

Accusing Sarawak Report of secret funding from the pharmaceutical company

Novartis! Unfortunately, our researches have shown that Samuel Everett 

Morehead died in Dallas, Texas back in March 2013.

No respect

Families of Mr Morehead and others treated in this way have every right to be shocked and to complain at the lack of respect for their loved ones.  However, the scammers then callously switched the photo for this fake onto somebody completely different.

Meet the new ‘Sam Everett’!

The actual person represented in this picture is one Kelvin Fang, 

who works as a property consultant in Australia.

This new Sam Everett is in fact a chap called Kelvin Fang, from a completely different nationality and part of the world and several decades younger!

The real Kelvin Fang

In real life Kelvin is a property consultant in Australia and presumably has no idea that his face is being used in this way.

Cynically, the liars and forgers behind this identity claim in his personal statement:

“Opinions/tweets are my own and they are usually serious”.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Yet, despite this string of abuses by paid PR companies, who are also defaming us, we encountered a worrying lack of response and concern from both Facebook and Twitter when we tried to alert them to the problem.

Brave eco-campaigner used to shaft SR

Sarawak Report was forced to take legal action and to inform the British media over an issue that we believe Facebook and Twitter ought to have rectified right away by removing the offending ‘sock puppets’.

Another well-known face abused by the paid defamers of Sarawak Report was the Turkish Greenpeace environmental campaigner Gizem Arkhan (left).

She endured time in a Russian jail after highlighting the problem of drilling in the Arctic.

Yet, Gizem has been re-invented by the PR campaign as a different environmentalist called Ella Dooley, whose fake tweets are all designed to poke criticism and accusations against people working for this site.

Fake again – Arctic activist Gizem Arkhan becomes Ella Dooley focused on 

South East Asia

Another use to which these sock puppets have been put has been to deliberately tweet falsehoods to the professional clients and associates of people working with Sarawak Report, in a malicious attempt to undermine their business and damage their livelihoods.

Rosy or Lilian?

The long list of people used in this way includes British travel company executive, who advertises a help line under her name Rosy for the company Responsible Travel in London.

Thanks to the forgers she has now been re-designated as an air hostess working out of KL.

Like all the other fake Twitter accounts, hers was created on October 23rd at the start of the campaign and at the same time that the Facebook site defaming SR was set up.  Her tweets are designed to steer people to look at that Facebook site, which has paid for “promoted content” status on Facebook to get further attention.

Rosy becomes fictitious Lilian Woodfull – who calls SR a liar

One senior British lawyer also abused in this way, Nathan Willmott, was dismayed when Sarawak Report informed him that in his case his real name and photograph is being used for another of these Twitter characters, which has nothing to do with him.

David Begg becomes David Beg – same photo!

He was particularly upset that the forged site makes reference to alleged activities with his family members and confirmed to Sarawak Report that this liberty with his personal life was a fake intrusion.

In another case a senior Irish union leader, who has just retired, named David Begg, found that his photograph and mis-spelt name are being used on an account that attacks Sarawak Report and praises the Malaysian Palm Oil Council.

His office told Sarawak Report that he would not be pleased and they confirmed that Mr Begg has never had a Twitter account in his life.

The long list of people being treated in this way continues.

One Malaysian girl, who had spoken to the press about her ultra-orthodox Muslim views and willingness to be circumcised, had her photo re-invented into a fake character called Rose Verdon – again promoting anti-SR material.

Attacking SR for alleged donation fraud

Later, the scammers again seem to have had a change of mind about this identity, so a few days later and welcome to the new Rose Verdon (below).

Make up your minds before you forge identities?

No longer is she an orthodox Malay girl, but a British expat living in KL!

Another fake persona in this campaign goes under the name of Edward Bungaree, who is particularly aggressive against Sarawak Report and like many of the characters is also used to post attacking comments on our site.

Yet in reality his photo comes from a completely different Malaysian chap called Kavin Menon, according to reverse picture searches.

Altogether, Sarawak Report has identified dozens of these characters, each of one of which represents an abuse of the identity and privacy of an innocent person, quite apart from taking part in a defamation campaign against Sarawak Report, which is also innocent of the accusations that the people hiding behind these characters are making.

 

Case to answer by Facebook and Twitter

 

Does Kavin know he is being faked as Edward Bungaree?

However, when Sarawak Report attempted to report these concerns to Facebook and Twitter, explaining that not only were falsehood and untruths being spread on sponsored (paid for) Facebook content, but that ordinary unwitting people were being exploited for their images and identities, we found a shocking lack of response.

These are billion dollar companies, which make their money from people interfacing on the web, but we found them virtually impossible to contact via the web themselves, especially to complain.

Finally we had to send legal letters, because the complaints procedure is so inadequate.  At no point can you lay out the details of your complaint in writing to Facebook, neither can you appeal directly to a customer relations officer.

Once again the false accusation about Novatis by “Edward Bungaree”

Instead, the company merely provides a tick box option from a handful of pre-decided categories of complaint, which they have offered you to select.

Quick change, the new photo of Bungaree, placed in the past few hours is another fake, the student interested in social justice has become an older teacher!

There is no space to explain the details of your complaint or the reasons for your concerns. You are not even given the opportunity to say whether you yourself are the victim of the harassment or a third party complainant.

Twitter does allow the complainant to detail the complaints, but it produced no better result.

All the complaints submitted by Sarawak Report and related parties to Facebook and Twitter rapidly triggered pro-forma negative responses, informing us that Facebook’s and Twitter’s ‘Community Teams’ had not judged that the ‘reported issue’ breached their guidelines.

Twitter’s standard brush off reply stated:

“We reviewed the account and content reported and are unable to take action given that we could not determine a clear violation of the Twitter rules surrounding abusive behaviour.”

Neither company offered a right of appeal.

The impression thereby given is Facebook and Twitter’s Community Teams consider that making money from stealing of people’s identities (including those of the dead) in order to use them to aggressively libel a third party for commercial purposes does not breach their guidelines.

No choice but to be anonymous in this pro-forma complaints procedure

To take further action complainants are obliged to hire lawyers to track down Facebook’s own elusive legal representatives at their address: 1 Hacker Way, Palo Alto.

Fake Laura tweets about SR

We have asked if this is an option available, for example, to vulnerable young people?

Or to people who are being misrepresented by fake characters using their identities?

For the record, Sarawak Report denies and refutes all the lies and accusations made against the Editor of this site, which untruthfully accuse her of criminal actions or willingness to participate in criminal actions and of receiving illicit payments etc etc.

Real Laura never mentions SR on Facebook

We deplore the tactics of selectively quoting out of context and with malicious intent private messages that were passed to the Swiss PR man Marc Comina by his client Xavier Justo and which he then passed on to third parties in a blatant and concerted attempt to allege that Sarawak Report ‘forged’ the evidence about 1MDB and PetroSaudi.

Till now Mr Comina has failed to respond to our queries as to whether he is also behind this dirty online campaign, which UK contacts have informed us was being recently commissioned in London by a Swiss PR company.

Instead of posting malicious lies anonymously, why don’t these big 

spenders put their names to such accusations, or better still sue SR?

Meanwhile, it is on the record that Comina has supplied to journalists the materials (eg whatsapp messages) that are being abused by this dirty PR campaign.

The lawyer Marc Henzolin, with whom he is working supposedly to represent Xavier Justo, told one Swiss newspaper Le Temps, in an ‘exclusive interview':

“My client has attended meetings where the Malaysian opposition and Clare Rewcastle Brown clearly evoked the political use they intend to make the documents they had not read. He considers that the documents have been used unscrupulous way and that some have been changed. But to what extent, what volume, he does not know. What is certain is that he has the impression of having been used, handled. In addition, he has not been paid, so he’s a little angry.” [Google Translate Le Temps]

The interviewer from Le Temps is one of Mr Comina’s own top Facebook friends and he never asked for Sarawak Report to comment on this defamatory accusation, even though he had our number.

Ex-journalist turned PR man for rich people in trouble

Mr Comina has further failed to answer as to whether his actual client is not in fact the company PetroSaudi, rather than the jailed Mr Justo.

We have accused PetroSaudi of corruptly participating in the theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB, partly thanks to evidence provided by Justo, whom the company then denounced for blackmail.

Mr Comina has told journalists that the present advice to Justo from his Swiss PR cum legal team has been to confess to PetroSaudi’s allegations of extortion and allege that Sarawak Report ‘doctored’ innocent emails from PetroSaudi in order to get an early release in Thailand.

However, just a few days ago Justo’s own legal team, of which Henzelin is part, dropped his appeal for an early release, leaving him to rot in a Thai jail where he cannot testify against PetroSaudi or 1MDB.

Comina and the black PR ops, who are using his material, should therefore stop making false accusations and staging anonymous dirty online campaigns against Sarawak Report.

If their employers have an issue with what we have published they should come out in the open and sue us in a court of law instead… something they have so far dared not do.

READ THE STORY IN THE INDEPENDENT

Sarawak Report

 

The Long Lost Stolen Bugis Pirate Treasure Of 1MDB

Australian Investigation Further Confirms 1MDB's Cayman Con-Trick

8 Nov 2015

Reproduced with permission

This post is also available in: Malay, Iban

Treasure Islands – where 1MDB chose to bury its missing billions through Avestra/Bridge Global

The company which 1MDB engaged to allegedly buy up its so-called investment in PetroSaudi back in 2012 is now under a separate investigation by the Australian authorities.

In the absence of a proper open enquiry in Malaysia itself into the shenanigans surrounding this dodgy deal, the liquidation of Avestra by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has provided some very useful information.

In particular, it nails the lies about an alleged billion dollar fund, secretively located in the Cayman Islands, which 1MDB had claimed contained its ‘profits’ from the PetroSaudi venture.

The Sydney-based Malaysian economics writer Ganesh Sahathevan has been pulling together the details of the ASIC investigation over the past few days and he has produced devastating evidence that the Australian investigation has concluded that Avestra never had more than a few tens of millions of dollars worth of funds under its total management – a far cry from the US$2.3 billion 1MDB claimed to have alone invested.

This adds to the information that the so-called Bridge Global Absolute Return Fund SPC, allegedly managed by Avestra, did not in fact exist as a licensed body in the Caymans at the time 1MDB says it plunged so much money into it.

The Wall Street Journal has summed up the dodgy sequence of events in a recent article “Hunt For Billions Invested in 1MDB Points To Australia“:

In 2012, 1MDB put $2.32 billion of what it said were proceeds from its PetroSaudi investment into a Cayman Islands-registered entity called Bridge Global Absolute Return Fund SPC. According to 1MDB, that money included its initial $1 billion investment, plus a later investment of about $800 million and profits it earned in the venture. The Bridge Global fund was set up only weeks before it received the 1MDB money, according to documents from the Cayman Islands corporate registry that don’t say who set it up.

In testimony in June to the parliamentary committee investigating 1MDB, a representative from current auditor Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. said the money in Bridge Global at that time was managed by Avestra. Australia’s regulator says Avestra became an “investment adviser” to Bridge Global in March 2014. It is unclear whether Avestra had any prior connection to Bridge Global or if it still has a role at the Cayman Islands fund…..

Opposition politicians and even some members of Malaysia’s ruling party, however, have wondered why 1MDB would keep so much money in a little-known fund…..  1MDB’s auditor, KPMG LLP, was fired in December 2013 by Mr. Najib, who is chairman of 1MDB’s board of advisers, after it refused to sign off on the Malaysian fund’s financial accounts without more details on the investment in Bridge Global, according to the auditor general report.

To enable Deloitte to sign off on its books after KMPG was fired, 1MDB got [Aabar].. to guarantee the investments in Bridge Global, a Deloitte auditor told the Malaysian parliamentary committee…

Soon after, 1MDB used its investment in Bridge Global as collateral for a $975 million loan from a group of banks including Deutsche Bank. Questioning its collateral after already giving the loan, the banks pressed 1MDB to pay back the loan just nine months after it was issued, according to Malaysia’s finance ministry.

The Abu Dhabi firm IPIC [Aabar] stepped in again. It agreed to take over some of 1MDB’s debt, including the Deutsche Bank loan, in return for equity, under the terms of an agreement signed in May with the Malaysian fund.

Last year 1MDB said it had redeemed roughly $1.22 billion of its $2.32 billion investment in Bridge Global. Officials at 1MDB said the remaining investment of just over $1 billion will be handed over to Abu Dhabi’s IPIC as compensation for helping it repay the Deutsche Bank loan. [Wall Street Journal November 3rd]

As followers of the 1MDB crisis will know, there is no prospect of the so-called remaining investment being used to pay back Aabar however.  This is the alleged US$1.03 billion that Kanda had claimed was being held in cash in the Brazen Sky account in BSI Bank Singapore.

Sarawak Report long since provided the evidence that there was no such cash, which Kanda was forced to then acknowledge. This was why the Deutsche Bank consortium had pulled out of the deal in May.

“Highest standards of transparency and integrity throughout our organisation” 

… especially in The Cayman Islands?

As the Wall Street Journal points out, the deal with Aabar that Najib as Prime Minister secured to get the further lending has committed the Malaysian Government to find the money to pay Aabar back, despite all his pretence that tax payers would not be forced to bail out 1MDB:

At a news conference on Saturday [Oct 31st], 1MDB Chief Executive Arul Kanda .. called the deal in May with IPIC, which also includes the Abu Dhabi fund taking over other bonds issued by 1MDB, “the final piece of our rationalization.”

The transfer of the remaining Bridge Global investment to IPIC isn’t scheduled to occur until next year, according to the agreement. Any shortfall in the value of the Bridge Global investment may have to be covered by the Malaysian government, according to the terms of the May agreement with IPIC.

In fact, all the world knows that the ‘cash’, then ‘funds’, then ‘units’ allegedly proclaimed to have existed in first the Avestra/ Bridge Global Cayman Fund and now at BSI Singapore are no more than a phantom tale.

Malaysians should ask why Aabar’s Khadem Al Qubaisi was so willing to guarantee 1MDB’s non-existent funds in the Cayman Islands in 2013 and why the President of Abu Dhabi later personally had him sacked?

All the money that had been ploughed into the PetroSaudi deal by 1MDB had long since been deliberately stolen long before the arrangement was ‘closed down’ in 2012 and the so-called ‘investment’ in PetroSaudi allegedly ‘sold’ to shady Bridge Global in the Caymans for a proclaimed US$2.32 billion.

The boys at Bridge Global were merely doing 1MDB a favour by agreeing to conceal its massive losses – a favour for which they were doubtless very reasonably paid.

Auditors KPMG were certainly not accepting the Cayman story and Deloittes only agreed a year later to turn a blind eye to events which it had not monitored directly, in return for the guarantee by the PM’s new friends from Aabar.

In which case, why did Najib and the Malaysian Government agree to commit to itself guarantee Aabar’s further loan last May, instead of cashing in the supposed earlier guarantee made by Aabar to Deloitte?

Clearly, because it amounted to a sham.

As Sahathevan has additionally pointed out, investigations into the limited information available provided by the shady Cayman Island registers also show that the fund into which Malaysia supposedly plunged its billions back in mid-2012, did not in fact exist as a registered entity until November 2013!

1 MDB is reported to have invested USD 2,2 billion in Bridge Global Absolute Return Fund SPC segregated portfolio units in August 2012.
However, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority’s list of mutual funds shows that the only fund named ” Bridge Global Absolute Return Fund SPC” was issued its license on 15 November 2013, more than a year AFTER 1 MDB is reported to have made its investment.

Without that license, Bridge Global Absolute Return Fund SPC would not have been able to accept funds for investment as an entity subject to the laws of the Caymans and it is doubtful if it would have otherwise existed. Even if it was in existence before that date, 1 MDB could not have dealt with it given its lack of standing

What better evidence that there is no solid cash or even ‘unit’ values involved here…. just a whole lot of back-dated accounting fraud by 1MDB!

1MDB’s buried treasure chests in the Cayman Islands were always completely empty…. the money had been stolen long before!

Sarawak Report

 

More Despicable Dirty Desperate PR Campaign Shenanigans Against Sarawak Report

Defamation Games: A Swiss PR; Anonymous Attacks; A Fake Twitter Army - And Information They All Share

31 Oct 2015

Reproduced with permission

 

Sponsored content on Facebook – who paid?

On October 23rd the latest paid PR campaign against Sarawak Report swung into its ‘new media’ phase.

We have seen it all before.

On that day a new Facebook site called ‘The Real Clare Rewcastle’ appeared online, replete with expensively commissioned cartoon videos denouncing the editor of Sarawak Report as a “liar”, “forger” and “activist posing as a journalist”.

Furthermore, it alleged that she had been paid by interested parties to work to “topple a democratically elected Prime Minister”.

On the self same day a bogus Facebook and Twitter army of  non-existent characters also made their debut to promote the videos and attack Sarawak Report.

Same things in common – started on same day, attacking same thing, same friends and followers – fake accounts.

Supposedly, the characters came from different countries, ages and backgrounds.

However, they are ‘followed’ by the same handful of organisations (including dating agencies) and share the same handful of links.

These October 23rd Tweeters and Facebook characters are all obsessed with the same issue, which is to encourage people to go and read the new Facebook site libelling Sarawak Report.

The motley crowd of allegedly unconnected fake people have also developed a parallel obsession with passing round an allegation that Sarawak Report is paid by none other than the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis.

Why Novartis would wish to pay for an alleged plot to “topple a democratically elected Prime Minister” remains unexplained, however the company is unpopular with certain environmental groups, who appear to be targeted in an attempt to undermine support for Sarawak Report.

‘KL air hostess Lillian’ is invited to present herself along with her other 

new friends of 23rd October

It is, of course, all entirely untrue.

Ella’s only three followers include ‘Erotic Beauty’ and ‘Handsome Fresh’ and her  two new Oct 23rd contacts Maya and Harry were soon attacking the comments section of Sarawak Report claiming we produce ‘no evidence’..

Promoted content

Nevertheless, the Facebook site is ‘promoted’ content, which means that Facebook is being paid to direct it towards as wide a circle as possible of interested people – eg all Malaysians.

‘Ella’ (left) and her small army of fake friends have also started trying to harass anyone involved with Sarawak Report, in order to attempt to undermine their own separate contacts.

The sponsors of the site have remained anonymous, of course, to avoid being held accountable for their blatantly libellous content.

The UMNO communications boss, Rahman Dahlan, of Lester Melanyi fame would doubtless have approved of this whole cunning ruse to attack this website, but the finger points elsewhere on this occasion.

Oct 23rd also saw the invention of ‘Rosie’ – pro the Najib budget and anti-SR. She has two followers including “Badclass Lingerie”

A fortnight or so earlier Sarawak Report had received warnings that a Swiss PR firm was ringing round the UK looking for a partner in a ‘dirty campaign’ against Clare Rewcastle.

The campaign was to involve material gained from her whatsap communications with Xavier Justo, the ex-PetroSaudi Director who had passed her a copy of that company’s database, including the details of the 1MDB PetroSaudi joint venture involving the theft of US$1.83 billion dollars from Malaysia.

Most UK PR companies declined to be involved in this grubby job, but where there is money there is always an eventual taker.

Marc Comina

So who was the Swiss PR organising this campaign in the UK, which appears to be now manifesting itself in The Real Clare Rewcastle Facebook page and the British made videos attacking SR?

It is well known amongst Swiss journalists that the man handling matters supposedly on behalf of Xavier Justo in Switzerland over past weeks has been the PR spokesman Marc Comina, who has represented a variety of wealthy people in trouble.

Nathan created Oct 23rd and focused on attacking SR also has no personal friends, just the sort of follower you can easily acquire!

Other clients of Comina include the former Kazakh Minister of Energy; an art dealer who is presently accused of stealing paintings from Piccaso’s daughter and a Swiss wine producer accused by the authorities of breaking rules.

In a number of these cases Comina has worked together with a well-known and expensive Geneva lawyer named Marc Henzelin and sure enough Henzelin is also engaged alongside Comina to represent Xavier Justo in Switzerland regarding his present incarceration in a Bangkok jail.

As Malaysians all know, Justo was arrested in Bangkok because he was denounced by his former colleagues at PetroSaudi for leaking their database and they accused him of blackmail.

My own Twitter – Marc Comina

The question is how has Justo suddenly acquired the money to hire this expensive PR and legal team in Switzerland and what are they actually up to, supposedly on his behalf?

Sarawak Report has learnt that Comina has spoken extensively to selected Swiss journalists about Justo – some were granted exclusive access to fly to Thailand and visit the former PetroSaudi director, who had expected to be freed after confessing to what he understood were minor charges for attempted extortion – but instead received a three year jail sentence.

This lengthy sentence was thanks not least to the aggressive lobbying by PetroSaudi and 1MDB, who are together trying to also discredit the leaked material in Sarawak Report.

Comina has made clear to journalists that he and Henzelin’s current advice to Justo is to confess to being a blackmailer and to apologise to the Malaysian Prime Minister for the embarrassment caused by the PetroSaudi revelations.

Lawyer Marc Henzelin represents rich people in tight spots – he gave an exclusive interview to Le Temps alleging SR is linked to the opposition and could be a forger

Furthermore, Justo is being encouraged to allege that he was the victim of a plot by Sarawak Report to entice him to provide what he is now portraying as innocent material in the PetroSaudi database (“just some emails”) so that we could supposedly ‘doctor’ it to give a bad impression.

“My client has the impression he was used and manipulated” Henzelin told Le Temps.

Sarawak Report’s motive, according to the new Justo narrative, was not to expose a huge crime and a massive international story, but to carry out an ‘opposition plot’ to “topple a democratically elected Prime Minister”, for which they imply we were paid by ‘opposition forces’ (including Novartis?).

Thus, according to Marc Comina’s present PR, poor Xavier Justo had no idea what was in the material he first used to blackmail PetroSaudi and then was trying to sell for US$2 million.

He and Mr Henzelin have gone even further, to libellously imply that Sarawak Report is an unscrupulous forger.

This is what Mr Henzelin told the Chief Reporter of the newspaper Le Temps, Sylvain Besson in an ‘exclusive interview’ granted last month, during which the lawyer also takes the opportunity to promote the image of PetroSaudi:

“Besson: PetroSaudi is it a reputable company? Or a simple facade?
Henzelin: I am not a lawyer for PetroSaudi, but it is common knowledge that this is a serious oil company, not an empty shell. They have oil blocks and drill ships they operate.
Besson: Xavier Justo he knew what use the documents he handed over would be to Malaysian opposition? These documents were they altered before publication, as stated PetroSaudi?
Henzelin: My client has attended meetings where the Malaysian opposition and Clare Rewcastle Brown clearly evoked the political use they intend to make the documents they had not read. He considers that the documents have been used unscrupulous way and that some have been changed. But to what extent, what volume, he does not know. What is certain is that he has the impression of having been used, handled. In addition, he has not been paid, so he’s a little angry. [Google Translate]

Mr Besson never approached Sarawak Report for our comment on these accusations, although he had our number.  If he had asked, we could have confirmed that the story about a meeting between Justo, Brown and the Malaysian opposition is a complete lie.

So is the claim about forgery.

We would have added that while Mr Henzelin denies he is serving the interests of PetroSaudi, the entire PR-managed interview with Le Temps plainly serves that company’s interests above all others.

‘My client feels he is being manipulated’ but by whom?

Since Justo had very limited funds by the time he was arrested and since similar engagements with the Swiss Press by the Comina/ Henzelin team have promoted the same line ‘on behalf of their client’, we therefore question who is ultimately financing Comina, Henzelin and all this PR?

What is certain is that Justo has now reconciled with PetroSaudi and has told visiting journalists that the man who originally denounced him and got him jailed in Bangkok, PetroSaudi’s Director Patrick Mahony, has now visited him behind bars and agreed to ‘help him get out’.

What a very nice chap after all?

Meanwhile, Mr Comina has been circulating certain extra materials to his chosen contacts journalists, which include copies of whatsap messages between Justo and and the editor of Sarawak Report and also of Justo’s ‘confessions’ made without a lawyer present after he was arrested.

We have evidence that these materials were passed to Le Temps and other selected Swiss newspapers.

Dark materials!

Spinning sinister interpretations on private messages about a payment that was never made.

These whatsap messages and ‘confessions’ were also what was offered to the PR companies in the UK who were being recruited to conduct a dirty campaign against Sarawak Report.

And the same materials are exactly what are now being used out of context as the main ‘evidence’ behind the smear campaign and videos featured on ‘The Real Clare Rewcastle’ Facebook site.

For the record, Clare Rewcastle did not pay Justo any money; did not receive any money from the opposition or anyone paying Justo and only agreed in principle to try to assist Mr Justo achieve a promised third party payment for his story, as long as process was entirely legal. In the event no payment ever took place.

These private messages obtained from Justo’s law case are now being used selectively and out of context, in order to smear Sarawak Report and distract from the real crime, which was the theft by PetroSaudi and Jho Low of US$1.83 billion dollars.

Comina’s real client? PetroSaudi’s Tarek Obaid was paid an US$85m ‘brokerage fee’ by Jho Low for the 1MDB deal according to the documents acquired from Justo.

So, who do we think is behind that?

When we wrote to Mr Comina earlier this week and asked him if he was linked to the anonymous and libellous Facebook and Twitter campaigns, which are employing and distorting the very same material he also supplied to journalists, he failed to reply.

On the other hand, the Le Temps senior reporter who obtained that exclusive interview with  lawyer Marc Henzelin, has roundly denied to Sarawak Report that he was aware of any PR manipulation in the genesis of his newspapers stories about Justo.

Sylvain Besson last week told Sarawak Report in a series of messages:

“I’d be glad to know which PR firm is conducting actions against you, so we can be aware of its actions and possible disinformation…”

“…. I can assure you we never heard of any PR firm disseminating material. They didn’t give it to us, at least. So we are still interested to know who they are, and to what extent they manipulate Justo’s lawyer and PR man.

On the other hand Besson acknowledged:

“….I confirm we’ll publish a story based on the messages exchanged between you and Xavier Justo”

These remarks were in response to a complaint by Sarawak Report, after one of Besson’s team, commissioned to write yet another critical item about Sarawak Report’s involvement with Justo explained:

“my mandate is to show our readers an example of transaction between someone who stole confidential data and people that agreed to pay for it.

There shall be no consideration about the situation in Malaysia, per se.
It is just a story about a Swiss guy who got trapped by trying to sell leaks.”

So who and what has determined Le Temp’s “mandate”, if a major international financial scandal involving Swiss banks is to be thus ignored, we asked Besson?

And why was Mr Besson denying he had any knowledge of the hostile PR management behind Justo and his lawyer, given that other journalists were well aware that Marc Comina is the only way to reach the story and obtain these Whatsap messages and “confessions’ from Justo?

We find it particularly odd given that Besson rates Comina as his number 4 best friend on Facebook:

Facebook friends with the PR manager who sees Justo’s best chances 

as accusing Sarawak Report for forgery and supporting PetroSaudi

Sarawak Report therefore agrees that Justo is being manipulated.

However, we suggest that the manipulators are his wealthy and unscrupulous former colleagues, from PetroSaudi, who are trying to escape from serious criminal charges regarding the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from 1MDB.

They have paid an expensive PR operator to pull on his contacts in the Swiss media.

After all, PetroSauid conspired to bring accusations against their whistleblower to get him jailed in Thailand.

Twitter Oct 23rd Newbie, Seth,  loves the PM’s budget but has no friends to follow him

They are now promising him help to get him out, so long as he agrees to turn accuser against Sarawak Report and make ludicrous claims about us forging and doctoring PetroSaudi documents.

We therefore challenge PetroSaudi to stop playing in the shadows with these hired PR hands and all this anonymous Facebook libel – they should instead take us to a proper court.

Singapore ‘Court Case’

By this we do not include the latest whispering to newspapers from unidentified sources that Justo is to ‘bring a case’ next week against Sarawak Report in Singapore.

Since Sarawak Report has never been notified of any such case, this represents just more nonsense and gossip from those who dare not challenge us openly.

Another Oct 23rd Tweeter in favour of the budget and accusing Novaritis of paying SR to attack PetroSaudi.

Justo, PetroSaudi, as well as the authorities in Thailand and Malaysia have the originals of all the documents we obtained – if we have doctored them it is entirely open to them to prove the matter in the UK courts (under whose jurisdiction the joint venture deal was done).

Otherwise, the Swiss media should stop regurgitating Marc Comina’s malicious PR and start to cover the real story, which is the role of their banks in Malaysia’s Heist of the Century.

Sarawak Report