EPISODES / Clare and Cullen — The Do-si-do
1.
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER
In an ironic twist of fate, both friends have been featured on Global News Canada, but at the opposite ends of the Law, at least for now — scroll below for videos
As the NINE QUESTIONS Panel had mentioned previously, Cullen Johnson and his wife-accomplice were convicted in April 2013 under counts of asset tracing and forgery.
“They concocted bogus and stunningly realistic international banking information that would lead one party to believe the other had millions of dollars in assets offshore in places like the Channel Islands or the Cayman Islands. Over a period of time, the detectives would charge increasingly higher fees in return for more “banking information.” Often that information was presented in court as real and it took lawyers and judges years to understand it was false.”
(‘Ontario detectives Cullen Johnson and Elaine White jailed in the U.S.’ — Toronto Star, January 17, 2014)
Their connection with Clare Rewcastle Brown had been firmly established by Clare’s own admission in her separate cover stories made on May 8, 2013, and January 10, 2015.
“Mr Pitt first contacted Sarawak Report’s Editor via a text to their [sic.] hand phone. It is relevant to mention that this handphone number was handed to the Sarawak police back in 2009 after an arrest at an armed road blockade.
“Mr Dirk Pitt/Cullen Johnson purported to have information on the Taib family’s global wealth. However, disappointingly Mr Pitt/Cullen Johnson only produced information which he was unable to substantiate, either with documentation or corroborative facts.
“Worse, he encouraged us to pay him in order to obtain what he suggested might be illegally accessed information. So, we explained that this is not our method of working.
“Communications ceased.
“We do not know whether Cullen Johnson/Dirk Pitt is a genuine battler against high-level corruption (entirely possible) or someone hired to lure us into a trap (equally possible).”
(‘Hacked Off!’ — Sarawak Report, May 8, 2013)
That statement was made a month after Johnson and White had already been convicted by US courts, and she is still feigning ignorance as to the guilt of her own contact, although in most cases involving her, she would characteristically be the first to cry wolf. Strange indeed.
RELATED (1–2)
[1: EPISODES / DRAMATIS PERSONÆ–WHO’S WHO OF CLARE BROWN– “I further request that Mr Justo is given all the protection due to a whistle blower in this situation and that proper steps are taken to investigate a grave financial fraud in which PetroSaudi International has played a major role.” — Clare Rewcastle Brown — Sarawak Report, July 24, 2015]
[2: BREAKING / JUSTO TO APPEAL 3-YEAR SENTENCE– “I am not a whistle-blower. I want people to know thereal story, not just anything and everything written about me.” — Xavier Justo — The Straits Times, September 3, 2015]
Between 2013 and 2015, Cullen Johnson and Elaine White’s modus operandi had been revealed, and tellingly, Clare’s cover story is suddenly furnished with a slight alteration.
“Emails intercepted by the IRS also helped the case. In an affidavit filed by special agent Brian Pelfrey, he describes how the emails, obtained using a search warrant, showed that Johnson, White and Grontis were discussing the “preparation” of the banking reports.”
(‘Island-hopping private eyes indicted on fraud, money laundering charges.’ — Toronto Star, April 12, 2013)
Then came the 2015 version.
“In 2012 Johnson contacted Sarawak Report some time before the general election [sic.], purporting that he had accessed bank account information about Abu Bekir.
“For several months this fellow continued to contact Sarawak Report, having mysteriously gained access to a private mobile number, which the Sarawak authorities had also obtained during a visit to the state in 2009.
“For this reason we treated Cullen’s approach as suspicious throughout.
“However, journalists are always willing to listen to people who claim to have information and for several months we engaged with Johnson (mainly via Skype messages) and waited to see where it all might lead.
“Therefore, it was only after strikingly similar financial information [from Cullen Johnson] was submitted in a court hearing related to Abu Bekir’s divorce and then printed in all the Malaysian media, that we too subsequently quoted what the Malaysian media reported had been said in court.
RELATED (1–4)
[1: FOCUS / CLARE REWCASTLE BROWN’S IGNORANCE OF HER OWN COUNTRY’S LEGAL CODES — “2–Fraud by false representation; (2) A representation is false if — (b) the person making it knows that it is,or might be,untrue or misleading.” — UK FRAUD ACT 2006, August 16, 2015]
[2: FOCUS / CLARE’S CONTRADICTIONS–THE FORKING OF THE TONGUE — “You don’t publish something unless you’ve caught someone doing something naughty; and once you do, you’ve got a certain amount of license to give him a hard time. That’s the job. I’m not trying to be objective, but I’m honest about what I say, and I’m critical where I think it’s deserved.” — Clare Rewcastle Brown — Esquire Malaysia, July 21, 2015]
[3: FOCUS / CLARE’S CONTRADICTIONS–THE FORKING OF THE TONGUE– “I believe in balance and objectivity. But if you can’t have that, I believe you have to be honest about it. Yes, we are associated with the opposition.” — Clare Rewcastle Brown — Foreign Policy, March 13, 2013]
[4: MAHMUD TAIB: EXAGGERATED WEALTH NOT REAL, BUT FORGERIES MASQUERADING AS HACKS — “It saddens me that my divorce, which is painful enough for all, should have been hijacked by politicians and activists, and used to disseminate falsehoods under the cover of this respected court.” — Dato Seri Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib — BlogTakes, August 17, 2015]
“Here is the full story of what happened and readers should indeed prepare for a truly ugly tale, involving theft, hacking, dirty PR and smear tactics.
“It all began when shortly before the general election in 2013 my mobile phone was pickpocketed at night in my home street in London.
On this phone were my skype and gmail messages.”
(‘A Truly Ugly Story — Theft, Hacking and Smear Tactics.’ — Sarawak Report, January 10, 2015)
The Panel notes with great interest in this particular context, the very careful choices of the words, “full” (in place of “true” or equivalent), and “tale” (instead of “testimony” or equivalent).
The fact that such a scandalous and damning information that could have been used against the Sarawak Government and Chief Minister Taib had been uncharacteristically kept under wraps and added only in hindsight by Sarawak Report is remarkable to say the least.
This alone is reason enough to be highly suspicious of any statements made by Clare Rewcastle Brown and associates.
In addition to this, she is also suspiciously flip-flopping between having ceased communications with Cullen Johnson before obtaining information, and taking a wait and see approach “to see where it all might lead”.
Again, with the additional and subsequent arrest and confession of Xavier Andre Justo, Lester Melanyi’s testimonial, and also her connection with Dato Ting Check Sii, who has recently been confirmed by Justice Edmund Leow of the High Court of Singapore to have supplied her with fabricated materials — still not retracted — Clare Rewcastle Brown’s connection to these individuals need seriously to be investigated.
We shall now view the Global News Canada presentation on the fraudulent deeds of Cullen Johnson and Elaine White in 16x9–FULL STORY: The Investigators, produced on February 23, 2013 (Hosted by Carolyn Jarvis) — about four months before Clare Brown made her first defence concerning Cullen Johnson on Sarawak Report on May 8, 2013.
CLICK BELOW FOR VIDEO
Two years prior to the arrest and conviction of Cullen Johnson and Elaine White, and the subsequent production of the last footage, Carolyn Jarvis also hosted another seemingly unrelated programming concerning the alleged corruption that is supposedly taking place in Sarawak on such a massive scale that it prompted world-renowned expert anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis — featured in this video — to describe the model State of Sarawak as nothing more than a “squalor”.
Perhaps this is influenced by the impression he gets from Clare Rewcastle Brown’s by now highly suspect and doubtful poison, it remains to be studied. During this coverage, the Brown-Davis-Straumann trio goes on a merry spree of accusations of corruption amid the insistence of the data being authentic and painstakingly put together, “entirely over the internet”.
We strongly suspect that they include emails provided by Cullen Johnson, and that her belated second testimony that Cullen Johnson only contacted her in 2012 may be a lie.
CLICK BELOW FOR VIDEO
The following is the accompanying write-up for the film presentation, the facts of which are easily seen upon a visit to the state itself, and simple checks of the facts online will show that Clare is simply spewing unverified data as fact, laced with unrecognizably twisted ‘facts’, or whatever that is left of them.
These are then repeated by several affiliated and misled news-outlets who wholly believe her and BMF’s concocted, yet highly-convincing stories.
The twisting of facts on this presentation is off the charts, but it is worth a look as the NINE QUESTIONS Blog will take more time to explore the mentality of these distorters of facts, posing as ecological heroes and academics.
The Malaysian state of Sarawak is a lush, tropical paradise…or at least it used to be. Sarawak has one of the world’s most important rainforests but that rainforest is disappearing at an astonishing rate. Some say Sarawak’s Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmoud [sic.] is to blame and they accuse him of profiting from the destruction.
Clare Rewcastle-Brown is a native* of Sarawak now living and working as an investigative journalist in London. She writes about the environment in Sarawak and what she sees as political connections to the destruction of the land, on her blog, The Sarawak Report.
“What has happened in Sarawak is a catastrophe, an environmental and human rights catastrophe. The entire forest in the country has been mowed down,” she says.
“The plans the Chief Minister Taib has for that area is to continue with that devastation and turn that whole area into a vast palm oil plantation which will just cement the disaster.”
RELATED (1)
[1: CURRENT / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO — “This information booklet is jointly compiled by Forest Department Sarawak, Sarawak Forestry Corporation, Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporation and Harwood Timber Sdn Bhd under the auspices of the Ministry of Resource Planning and Environment. It serves to explain the legality verification of logs as currently conducted in Sarawak in terms of the tracking and traceability of log movement along the chain of custody from the forest to the mill or export point. The prescribed verification activities are based on the Inter-Agency Standard Operating Procedures for Performance of Forestry Function that has beenadopted in 2010by the then Ministry of Planning and Resource Management.In line with the desire for continuous improvement,the verification activities and associated procedures described herein are subject to periodic revision or enhancement.” — Sarawak Forestry Department, October 2012]
But it’s not only the forest that’s in danger. One of the last nomadic tribes in the world lives in Sarawak’s rainforest. World famous anthropologist, Wade Davis has studied the Penan and told 16×9, “Within a single generation a way of life, morally inspired and inherently right, was being crushed just as the forest in which they were born was being crushed.” Davis went to say, “There was something so incredibly unjust about that.”
RELATED (1–4)
[1: EPISODES / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO — “But [sago] still doesn’t provide enough calories to support a large population. This jungle around us, you might think it’s a cornucopia, but it isn’t. Most of these trees in the jungle don’t yield, don’t give us anything edible. If you want to feed a lot of people, you’ve got to find a different food supply, you’ve got to find a really productive environment, and it’s not going to be a sago swamp.” — Jared Diamond — PBS , 2005]
[2: ‘THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL OF THE ROMA PEOPLE: EUROPE’S MOST HATED’ — ViceNews, July 24, 2014]
[3: ‘THE SECRET LIVES OF BRITAIN’S CHILD BEGGARS’ — BBC Panorama, October 19, 2015]
[4: ‘SWITZERLAND THREATENS TO CLOSE ITALIAN BORDER TO MIGRANTS’ — Newsweek, June 22, 2015]
But, according to Rewcastle-Brown, Abdul Taib Mahmoud [sic.] is doing more than just cutting down the forest. She says he’s lining his own pockets with profits from environmental destruction in Sarawak and investing that money outside Malaysia. She says she’s been following a paper trail of Taib’s investments.
“I’ve seen that most of the companies that have received the lands have been companies owned by his siblings and his children and political allies that he needs to keep sweet…mainly, his own family,” she says.
“I’ve painstakingly researched what I can of many of these contracts,” and says she’s been able to see that land contracts have gone straight from the Chief Minister to his family, and how they’ve profited.
One of Taib’s family members is Jamilah Taib-Murray, the Chief Minister’s daughter. She is the co-founder and remains a director of Sakto, a real estate development company headquartered in Ottawa. Sakto’s properties are said to be worth more than $100 million. Several major corporations rent office space in its commercial buildings and, it turns out, so does the Ontario government for a total cost of $4.9 million.
Rewcastle-Brown believes there’s a link between Taib’s profits in Sarawak to Jamilah’s initial business investments in the early 80s. “It’s been possible for me, sitting in London, to go through the company records online and to trace how this money has gone from Sarawak in the early 1980s to Canada,” she says.
16×9 asked Jamilah Taib-Murray and her husband, Sean Murray for an interview, but they declined. In a letter from Jamilah’s lawyer to 16×9, it states, “at no stage did her (Jamilah’s) father have economic benefit from or any direction of, the business — directly or indirectly. It also says Jamilah’s investment in Malaysia is “passive” and that Sakto and Sean Murray have none.
16×9 obtained a letter from Sean Murray to Clare Rewcastle-Brown that states she has acknowledged that she’s received funding by “wealthy entities” who oppose the Chief Minister in “upcoming elections”. Another legal letter sent to 16×9 says Clare has a “declared political interest” and they are “running a political campaign against the current Sarawak government”. Clare told 16×9 she has received no money from Malaysian politicians and that her donors are “all non-politically motivated Europeans”.
Sean Murray wrote to 16×9 saying, “Jamilah and I find these statements about ourselves and our business false, highly defamatory and very damaging.”
RELATED (1–3)
[1: FOCUS / CLARE’S CONTRADICTIONS–THE FORKING OF THE TONGUE– “I believe in balance and objectivity. But if you can’t have that, I believe you have to be honest about it. Yes, we are associated with the opposition.” — Clare Rewcastle Brown — Foreign Policy, March 13, 2013]
[1A: FOCUS / CLARE’S CONTRADICTIONS — THE FORKING OF THE TONGUE– “While the DAP representatives described election fraud in great detail and articulated their opposition to government corruption, they could not (or would not) tell us of their political agenda. Although we asked them several times to define their political goals, we left the meeting with the impression that the DAP has no legislative plans or detailed political priorities — other than maintenance of their seats in the next state election.” — US Embassy Source–WikiLeaks, October 2, 2006]
[1B: ‘KIT SIANG PROCLAIMS PAKATAN IS DEAD.’ — MalaysiaKini, June 6, 2015]
[2: FOCUS / CLARE’S CONTRADICTIONS–THE FORKING OF THE TONGUE — “You don’t publish something unless you’ve caught someone doing something naughty; and once you do, you’ve got a certain amount of license to give him a hard time. That’s the job. I’m not trying to be objective, but I’m honest about what I say, and I’m critical where I think it’s deserved.” — Clare Rewcastle Brown — Esquire Malaysia, July 21, 2015]
[3: FOCUS / CLARE REWCASTLE BROWN’S IGNORANCE OF HER OWN COUNTRY’S LEGAL CODES — “2–Fraud by false representation; (2) A representation is false if — (b)the person making it knows that it is,or might be,untrue or misleading.” — UK FRAUD ACT 2006, August 16, 2015]
In “Family Trees”, reporter, Sean O’Shea investigates the alleged money trail between Sarawak’s Chief Minister and his family in Canada. — © Shaw Media, 2011
*[She was born in British Colonial Sarawak but lived almost entirely in the UK, is a British subject and is not a native of Sarawak.]
(‘16x9: Family Trees.’ — Global News Canada, December 2, 2011)
Certainly, if all the doomsday predictions she had made in 2011 above were at all true, Sarawak would not still look and function as it does today, which is a testament to the achievements of Clare’s former arch enemy du jour, the current Governor of Sarawak, Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud–the subject of her enduring scorn and envy–bringing otherwise illustrious figures down to her level of twisted facts and outright lies along the way. The fact that Sarawak is still standing today, and is continuing on to produce world-class citizens amidst the presupposed “squalor” should put these shameless liars in their supposedly educated, yet obviously ignorant places, and the present Governor in His Excellency’s rightful one.
2.
THE PENANS OF SARAWAK
The subject of the Penans is a very important topic, which the NINE QUESTIONS Panel will gladly explore here and in future postings. At this moment, we can adamantly say that Mr Wade Davis is way off his mark in his supposedly studied case of the Penans.
For a start, we ask a simple question to the Bruno Manser Fonds and Mr Wade Davis: “What were to have happened to the Penans if they were the nomadic natives of Europe?”
RELATED (1–3)
[1: ‘THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL OF THE ROMA PEOPLE: EUROPE’S MOST HATED’ — ViceNews,July 24, 2014]
[2: ‘THE SECRET LIVES OF BRITAIN’S CHILD BEGGARS’ — BBC Panorama, October 19, 2015]
[3: ‘SWITZERLAND THREATENS TO CLOSE ITALIAN BORDER TO MIGRANTS’ — Newsweek, June 22, 2015]
As the three related links above demonstrate, it is a glaringly strange thing that a self-proclaimed socially-motivated and globally-aware movement such as the BMF and world-renowned anthropologist and ethnobotanist such as Wade Davis would be totally and completely silent on the ongoing and spiralling plights and sufferings of the persecuted nomadic tribes of Europe, in the same breath as giving the impression that they are fighting for the rights of all nomadic people.
We anticipate a tirade of excuses concerning this, although ultimately, their complete silence reflects their apathy to the cause precisely for the fact that Europeans seem to be more concerned about the nomadic tribes of Asia while they persecute the ones they are stuck with within their borders, with minimal or zero reporting.
In Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, we learn of the limitations of the nomadic way of life as he retraces the Papuan version of the Penans. Jared, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, professes an intimate knowledge of this area as he himself had known the local tribespeople for over thirty years.
There have been people living in New Guinea for at least 40,000 years — much longer than on the continents of North and South America. They’re among the most culturally diverse and adaptable people in the world. So why are they so much poorer than modern Americans?
Because hunting is so unpredictable, traditional societies have usually relied more on gathering. In this part of Papua New Guinea, the gathering is done by women.
An important source of food here is wild sago. By stripping a sago tree they can get to the pulp at the centre, which can be turned into dough and then cooked. Although it’s physically harder work, gathering is generally a more productive way of finding food than hunting. But it still doesn’t provide enough calories to support a large population.
This jungle around us, you might think it’s a cornucopia, but it isn’t.
Most of these trees in the jungle don’t yield, don’t give us anything edible.
There were just a few sago trees, and the rest of these trees don’t yield anything that we could eat.
And then sago itself has got limitations — one tree yields only maybe about 70 pounds of sago. It takes them three or four days to process that tree, so it’s a lot of work really for not a great deal of food, plus the sago starch is low on protein, and also the sago can’t be stored for a long time. And that’s why hunter/gatherer populations are so sparse.
If you want to feed a lot of people, you’ve got to find a different food supply, you’ve got to find a really productive environment, and it’s not going to be a sago swamp.
(‘Episode One: Out of Eden — Transcript.’ — PBS, 2005)
In contrast to Bruno Manser Fonds’ misguided and twisted worldview, Jared Diamond’s knowledge reflects a more in-depth understanding of the socio-ecologic and economic pros and cons of nomadic living, and from the viewpoint of history and science, the only way for a culture to move forward is to adapt into a more settled and domesticated lifestyle.
Ironically, this very limitation with the nomadic lifestyle is even recognised within Laki Penan, the touching tribute video remembering the life, writings and ideals of the late Bruno Manser, missing and presumed dead since 2000. Yet, its irony was completely lost on Bruno Manser and his Fonds.
His still mysterious disappearance had since become a major selling point for Bruno’s successors to accuse the then Chief Minister of various crimes that they have until today failed to substantiate in any fair manner.
Agricultural knowledge must somehow be passed on to the Penans in Sarawak if they are to keep apace with the rest of the local tribes, and agricultural lands need forest areas to be cleared.
If BMF were to be able to dictate the course of Penan history and culture, they will forever remain just as the tribespeople in Papua New Guinea, who actually asked Mr Diamond the following question, “Why you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little?”
RELATED: (1)
[1: In and interiew with Lukas Straumann for the article, ‘Switzerland has a Greater Influence than one thinks.”, the publication OnlineReports asked Mr. Straumann, “There are several Penan objects of cultural and historical interest in Basel. Are there any intentions of making them accessible to the public or even returning them to the Penan?” To which, Mr. Straumann answers, “We envision a Bruno-Manser-Building in Basel where the culture of the Penan and life in the rainforest could be brought closer to the public through a permanent exhibition.”]
And if BMF were to be able to dictate the course of Penan history and culture, it will be a long time coming before we have an asteroid named after a Penan, for example.
That honour was recently conferred to a Chinese Sarawakian — Ms Faye Jong Sow Fei who is attending a government-funded school at Batu Lintang, Kuching.
She is certainly the pride of the Sarawak Chinese community, and is an inspiration for youths from other communities to strive for similar aspirations. If BMF had their say in the course of Penan culture and history, a Penan boy or girl would perhaps be discouraged from such aspirations, as it might serve to disrupt their pristine ways of life.
RELATED (1–4)
[1: ‘SPIDER AND TOAD NAMED AFTER RAINFOREST ADVOCATE MANSER.’ — The Malaysian Insider, August 25, 2014]
[2: ‘ZOOLOGISTS NAME NEW DISCOVERIES AFTER RAINFOREST ADVOCATE.’ — SwissInfo.CH, August 25, 2014]
[3: ‘NEW SPIDER SPECIES IN SARAWAK NAMED AFTER MISSING ACTIVIST.’ — Global Voices, August 25, 2014]
[4: ‘NEWLY DISCOVERED ANIMAL SPECIES NAMED AFTER SWISS RAINFOREST ADVOCATE.’ — Science-Switzerland, August 25, 2014]
It doesn’t seem that Bruno Manser Fonds would like for many people to think about this conundrum, because it really demonstrates the real fundamental reason why the wealth doesn’t get to the Penans, and not some trumped up charges of criminal plundering — the basis of such claims have been repeatedly and authoritatively disputed, regardless of how much BMF and associates would prefer to ignore that fact by persistently reproducing such falsities in their largely and notoriously anti-factual book, which also heavily cites the confirmed fabricator, Dato Ting Check Sii.
RELATED (1–2)
[1: EPISODES / DRAMATIS PERSONÆ–WHO’S WHO OF CLARE BROWN — “Tanaka is in substance, Dato Ting [Check Sii]’s mouthpiece…I completely reject Tanaka’scontention on the Oral Agreements.There issimply no credible evidence to substantiate the existence of the oral agreements at all material times…I need only outline a few broad reasons here…Tanaka’s case was originally premised on the purported directors’ resolutions of 1993 and 1994, which I find to be fabricated.” — Justice Edmund Leow of The High Court of Singapore for ‘Suit No 783 of 2012’, June 29, 2015]
[2: FOCUS / CLARE REWCASTLE BROWN’S IGNORANCE OF HER OWN COUNTRY’S LEGAL CODES — “2–Fraud by false representation; (2) A representation is false if — (b) the person making it knows that it is,or might be, untrue or misleading.” — UK FRAUD ACT 2006, August 16, 2015]
With or without agriculture, the shifting cultivation subsistence hunting and gathering method that nomadic cultures practice are generally at odds with forest conservation ideals from the very outset, especially when anticipating population growth of the community.
A fact which BMF is failing to reconcile, and the general public is simply expected not to catch the discrepancy. In light of this knowledge, we begin to seriously wonder, what is it that the Bruno Manser Fonds really stand for?
There must be a good reason why the Penans are, according to Mr Wade Davis, “one of the last remaining nomadic tribes on Earth”, and they have remained so even before and without Mr Davis’ or the late Bruno Manser’s sudden interest in their salvation.
That good reason is precisely because no one in Sarawak, whether it be the Government, or any ordinary person wants the Penan to be rid of, as opposed to the faulty assumptions and propaganda of these self-interested eco-crusaders.
That leads the Panel to ask, whatever happened to the other nomadic tribes of the Americas, Canada and Europe?
Certainly, Governor Taib and family weren’t the ones who wiped them out, whether intentionally or otherwise. The Penans are, in fact still around and will eventually thrive just like all the other communities in Sarawak, and just like all the communities in Sarawak will be making their own reasonable adjustments to be in line with the mainstream of society and preserve their culture as they see fit, and not according to the dictats of certain self-interested Westerners** who had failed and are failing to assist and preserve their own nomadic tribes and other minority cultures while noisily regarding other people’s living spaces as theirs to manipulate and distort.
**There are many Westerners and locals working on the case of the Penans who base their research on concrete facts and using the proper channels and methods to stand for the rights of the Penans, many are also critical of the Sarawak Government. They are not in this category.
THE CONNECTION IS THUS ESTABLISHED
As the link between Clare Rewcastle Brown and Cullen Johnson has been firmly established, it is hoped that Global News Canada and Carolyn Jarvis and associates will take the interest in digging deeper into this lurid, yet tantalizing connection.
A firm connection that was previously undetected–until today.
In parting, the NINE QUESTIONS Blog would also like to bring attention to Clare Rewcastle Brown’s description of her source of funding, when it was stated that, “Clare told 16×9 she has received no money from Malaysian politicians and that her donors are “all non-politically motivated Europeans” (read, “certain self-interested Westerners”).
RELATED (1–8)
[1: FOCUS / CLARE’S CONTRADICTIONS — THE FORKING OF THE TONGUE — “The funding for her radio, she says, comes primarily from a single “Europeanphilanthropist”who wishes to remain anonymous; listeners also send donations through the website.” — Foreign Policy, March 13, 2013]
[2: CURRENT / CLARE’S FACELESS DONORS–MORE DOUBLE STANDARDS– “Clare said Radio Free Sarawak (RFS) is largely funded by a reputable European foundation which focuses onrainforest issues. We also receive…mainly small donations from people…through our site’s donation page.” — The Sun Daily, September 1, 2015]
[3: BREAKING / SWISS NATIONAL GIVEN 3-YEAR JAIL TERM FOR 1MDB-LINKED BLACKMAIL — “The country’s anti-corruption agency later said the $700 million was donations, effectively clearing Razak of wrongdoing.” — FultonCounty.COM, August 17, 2015]
[4: CURRENT / CLARE REWCASTLE BROWN’S INTERVIEW ON CHANNEL NEWSASIA REGARDING THE WARRANT FOR HER ARREST — “The Prime Minister has now finally had it announced through the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission that that was not anything to do with 1MDB money, which actually certainly I and I don’t know of any investigative reporters who said it was.” — Clare Rewcastle Brown — Channel NewsAsia, August 5, 2015]
[5: SENSATIONAL FINDINGS! PRIME MINISTER NAJIB RAZAK’S PERSONAL ACCOUNTS LINKED TO 1MDB MONEY TRAIL — MALAYSIA EXCLUSIVE — Sarawak Report, July 2, 2015]
[6: CURRENT / JUSTO AND THE EDGE MEDIA GROUP — “Yes, we misled [Justo]. But that was the only way to get hold of the evidence to expose how a small group of Malaysians and foreigners cheated the people of Malaysia of US$1.83 billion (S$2.5 billion). All the more so when we know he will be upset with us because we will eventually not pay him what he wants.” — Datuk Tong Kooi Ong and Ho Kay Tat — The Straits Times, July 24, 2015]
[7: FOCUS / CLARE REWCASTLE BROWN’S IGNORANCE OF HER OWN COUNTRY’S LEGAL CODES — “2–Fraud by false representation; (2) A representation is false if — (b) the person making it knows that it is,or might be,untrue or misleading.” — UK FRAUD ACT 2006, August 16, 2015]
[8: EPISODES / DRAMATIS PERSONÆ–WHO’S WHO OF CLARE BROWN–”I furtherrequest that Mr Justo is given all the protection due to a whistle blower in this situation and that proper steps are taken to investigate a grave financial fraud in which PetroSaudi International has played a major role.” — Clare Rewcastle Brown — Sarawak Report, July 24, 2015]
[8A: BREAKING / JUSTO TO APPEAL 3-YEAR SENTENCE– “I am not a whistle-blower. I want people to know thereal story, not just anything and everything written about me.” — Xavier Justo — The Straits Times, September 3, 2015]
For your information, Ms Clare Rewcastle Brown, the NINE QUESTIONS FOR SARAWAK REPORT Blog and Malaysians are also asking by now who are these “non-politically motivated Europeans”, who are also giving you anonymous donations, what are you using them for and when were you planning to exercise this transparency ‘fad’ onto yourself?
3.
THE LETTER THAT BMF AND SR WOULDN’T LIKE YOU TO READ — AS IS
LETTER FROM MISHCON DE REYA TO LUKAS STRAUMANN
MISCHON DE REYA
SUMMIT HOUSE
12 RED LION SQUARE
LONDON WC1R 4QD
DX 37954 KINGSWAY
15 January 2015
Our Ref: JLL/EN/40232.1
Dr Lukas Straumann
Bruno Manser Fund
Socinstrasse 37
ch-4051 Basel
BY E-MAIL (LUKAS.STRAUMANN@BMF.CH)
Dear Sir
MONEY LOGGING: ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASIAN TIMBER MAFIA
We write further to your letter of 6 January.
You seem to be under the impression that it is our client’s obligation to prove your allegations untrue, rather than yours to prove them true. As a matter of both law and principle, the onus is on you to prove your own allegations to be true, not upon our client to disprove them. You should have done this prior to publication.
RELATED (1–5)
[1: EPISODES / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO — “[I] will not retract a single word as the book has been “meticulously researched and is strictly fact-based.” — Lukas Straumann — Bruno Manser Fonds, November 3, 2014]
[2: EPISODES / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO — “3. Sources used for this report…this report draws specifically on the following sources:- Sarawak Report, a campaign website run by British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown.- Court depositions by former Taib family employees and business partners:- Ross J. Boyert: former Vice President of Taib family-owned Sakti International Corporation in California, US12- Ting Check Sii: former owner [sic.] of now Taib family-controlled Sanyan Sdn. Bhd in Malaysia.- Farok Majeed: former business associate of Onn Mahmud in Singapore and Australia.” — Bruno Manser Fonds, 2014]
[3: [RELATED: EPISODES / DRAMATIS PERSONÆ–WHO’S WHO OF CLARE BROWN — “Tanaka is in substance, Dato Ting [Check Sii]’s mouthpiece…I completely reject Tanaka’scontention on the Oral Agreements. There is simply no credible evidence to substantiate the existence of the oral agreements at all material times…I need only outline a few broad reasons here…Tanaka’s case was originally premised on the purported directors’ resolutions of 1993 and 1994, which I find to be fabricated.” — Justice Edmund Leow of The High Court of Singapore for ‘Suit No 783 of 2012’, June 29, 2015]
[4: VISUAL AIDS / EXHIBIT 3 — “Squeezed out — former partner Ting Check Sii is looking for the return of his investment.” — Sarawak Report, January 27, 2015]
[5: FOCUS / CLARE REWCASTLE BROWN’S IGNORANCE OF HER OWN COUNTRY’S LEGAL CODES — “2– Fraud by false representation; (2) A representation is false if — (b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.” — UK FRAUD ACT 2006, August 16, 2015]
However, even after the receipt of information detailing factual inaccuracies, and prior to the publication of the Book, neither the websites run by your organisation, nor your Book, address these errors. The inclusion of allegations regarding Onn Mahmud and alleged Japanese kickbacks are particularly shocking considering that they have been investigated by the Japanese authorities and found to be untrue. You will also be aware that the publication of these allegations resulted in our client successfully suing Malaysiakini for defamation.
Your letter is nothing more than a publicity stunt to help promote your book launch in London. You have taken correspondence which we had with Amazon and Bergli Books and published it so selectively as to entirely misrepresent the true nature of the parties’ positions as well as your allegations. As a result the general public, and (crucially) your retailers and distributors, have an entirely distorted view of the true factual position regarding your Book’s allegations.
Your and/or Bergli Books’s complete misunderstanding of your legal position is obvious and concerning. We strongly advise that you and they take legal advice as a matter of urgency. Your Book is, as a matter of fact, defamatory (or libellous). To allege that someone is part of a mafia organisation and otherwise taking part in illegal activities is categorically defamatory. Bergli Books may believe that you have defences to a defamation action, but you cannot accurately claim that the allegations are not defamatory. As a matter of fact, they are entirely defamatory.
Below is a short factual analysis of just a few of your key allegations, by way of example. It does not represent a complete analysis of every allegation you make, but nevertheless shows categorically that many of the claims contained in your Book are untrue. This information will not be new to you: we have laid it out in correspondence with Bergli Books and others, and all the issues dealt with below are matters of public record.
The below analysis is provided in the spirit of demonstrating the mendacious nature of the allegations in your Book. The examples used are indicative, but by no means exhaustive.
FACTUAL REBUTTALS OF CERTAIN ALLEGATIONS MADE IN YOUR BOOK, AS PREVIOUSLY PROVIDED:
1. Your Book states that Abdul Taib Mahmud awarded his brother, Onn Mahmud control over the privatised tropical timber export agency and that Onn Mahmud subsequently demanded kickbacks from Japanese shipping companies.
This is untrue both substantively and on several points of detail. There is no such thing as a timber export license in Sarawak. Timber felling is controlled. Timber exports are not controlled. The only permit needed is certification of export duty paid. Therefore the allegation repeated in your Book, that Onn Mahmud had control over exports is nonsense.
The falsehood of your statements regarding Onn Mahmud is compounded by your claim that Onn Mahmud demanded kickbacks from Japanese shipping companies. The facts on the matter, all available publicly, are that in 1981, Dewan Niaga (Sarawak) Sdn [sic.], then owned by the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation, entered into an agreement with a collection of Japanese shipping lines that already operated under the Nanyozai Freight Agreement.
The company was subsequently privatised, at which point Onn Mahmud became a partial owner. The arrangement with the NFA was later alleged to be corrupt and was investigated by the Japanese authorities. The Japanese authorities accepted that the payments were legitimate, and our client consequently brought a claim for defamation, which was settled on very favourable terms with our client, and resulted in a total retraction and apology from Malaysiakini, the Malaysian news portal which had published the allegations.
Notwithstanding the fact that Malaysiakini has publicly apologized for publishing the same false allegations regarding Onn Mahmud and Abdul Taib Mahmud, you have published them as fact, and make no mention at all of the court case or Malaysiakini’s apology, which is available on its website.
2. Your Book states that a timber tycoon’s family, the Yaw family sold a property in Washington State to Abdul Taib Mahmud’s family for one dollar. Implicit in this allegation is that such a sale of a multi-million dollar property was a bribe.
The Yaw family moved the property, 1117 Boylston Ave E in Seattle, into a SPV company, WA Boylston Inc, for a “quit claim” fee of one dollar. Quit claim transactions are normal within a portfolio of assets. The vendor and acquirer — as evidenced by the publicly available paperwork — were the Yaw family. This transaction was internal to, and perfectly normal practice for, owner of a large property. Neither Abdul Taib Mahmud nor his family were party to that process, or had any interest in the property or company at that time. Subsequently, WA Boylston Inc was then sold on, in a legal transaction at full market value, to a company controlled by members of Abdul Taib Mahmud’s family. The account in your Book corrupts a normal transaction into a totally fictitious bribe.
3. Your Book deploys Mr Boyert as a credible witness.
Mr Boyert was nota credible witness. He was a disgruntled former employee with serious mental health issues and a history of bringing fictitious claims against former employers.
Mr Boyert worked for Sakti for many years before he resigned and pursued an ill-fated employment claim. It was subsequently revealed that Mr Boyert had attempted to benefit financially using a similar approach in a failed lawsuit he brought against another of his former employers which was decided in 1992.
Your Book also seeks to intimate that our client had a hand in Mr Boyert’s death. This is again untrue: Mr Boyert was clearly suicidal and quite apparently delusional, paranoid and undergoing severe psychiatric issues. Clare Rewcastle, through whom you were introduced to Mr Boyert, interviewed him in a psychiatric hospital a few weeks before his death in 2010. HIs death was examined by the authorities in California and determined to be a case of suicide.
As part of the claim that our client was instrumental in Mr Boyert’s death, your book additionally alleges that our client financially ruined Mr Boyert. This, also is untrue. Although he failed in his employment claim against them, the Taib family guessed at this parlous financial position and did not seek their legal fees from him. Mr Boyert was in fact bankrupted (for at least the second time in his life) by his own disastrous real estate investments, spiralling credit card bills and his lawyers’ fees. Examples of Mr Boyert’s employment after he left Sakti and his poor financial situation are all matters of public record which you have chosen to ignore.
4. Your Book relies upon a depiction of relatives collected as a single body controlled by our client.
This is untrue. Abdul Taib Mahmud is a wealthy man and comes from a large and prominent family. He does not control the actions of his very many relatives and the manner in which you have portrayed this in your book is an extreme distortion of reality.
It should be a matter of great embarrassment to you that you have chosen to publish select sections of our correspondence with Bergli Books but have never published any of the factual information that shows many of your allegations to be untrue. If you publish this response, but again only quote selectively from it you again are compounding your original defamation. Such behaviour will prove that you are motivated only by a desire to harm our client’s reputation and that you are entirely uninterested in the actual truth of these matters. All our client’s rights remain fully reserved. Yours faithfully, Mishcon de Reya
4.
THE ACTUAL LETTER TO THE BBC
LETTER FROM MISHCON DE REYA TO THE BBC
MISCHON DE REYA
SUMMIT HOUSE
12 RED LION SQUARE
LONDON WC1R 4QD
DX 37954 KINGSWAY
15 January 2015
Our Ref: JLL/EN/40232.I/
Your Ref:
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Ms S Streeter
British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC Television Centre
Wood Lane
London
W127RJ
BY E-MAIL (SUSANNAH.STREETER@BBC.CO.UK)
Dear Madam
Interview with Lukas Straumann and Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia, by Lukas Straumann (the “Book”)
As you are aware, we act for Tun Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud (“Mr Abdul Taib”), the current Governor of Sarawak. We write further to your telephone call to this firm of today.
We understand that you intend to broadcast an interview with Mr Straumann tomorrow. We assume that the interview will be about or otherwise cover the subject matter of Mr Straumann’s Book.
As you will doubtless be aware, our client’s position is that Mr Straumann’s Book contains numerous defamatory allegations about him that are both highly defamatory and entirely untrue.
We have engaged in correspondence with Mr Straumann’s publishers about those allegations and explained, by way of example, some of the many factual errors in Mr Straumann’s Book on behalf of our client. The factual errors described in correspondence render many of Mr Straumann’s central allegations entirely untrue. Some of the most serious allegations made by Mr Straumann in his Book, for example, have already been tested in court and found to be untrue.
We have not received responses that deal with the substantive factual issues raised on behalf of our client in correspondence.
Mr Straumann has published partial extracts from our correspondence with his publishers in order to make comment upon both this firm and its client. He has each time failed to publish the factual rebuttals provided. This is not surprising considering that they throw significant doubt on the allegations that he makes, both in his Book and elsewhere
The BBC is now on notice that the allegations that Mr Straumann makes in his Book are in large part defamatory of our client and are untrue. Should the BBC wish to publish any allegations about either our client or this firm, they should be put in writing to us first, providing a reasonable time to respond.
The BBC will obviously be held accountable under English law in the usual was for what it publishes.
All of this firm’s and our client’s rights are fully reserved.
Yours faithfully,
Mishcon de Reya
(‘Letter to the BBC–JLL/EN/40232.I/’ — Mishcon de Reya, January 15, 2015)
The NINE QUESTIONS Blog will return with more facts.
Originally published at ninequestionsforsarawakreport.blogspot.my on September 1, 2015.
