Whistleblower website Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown seen here via a Skype video conference call at a forum in Petaling Jaya last March, is now a wanted woman in Malaysia with a warrant of arrest issued by the police today. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, August 4, 2015.Malaysian police have obtained a warrant of arrest for Sarawak Report founder and editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown, and will begin the process of obtaining help from Interpol and Aseanapol to facilitate her detention, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department said today.
Datuk Seri Mohmad Salleh said Rewcastle-Brown, who is based in the UK, would be investigated under Section 124B and 124I of the Penal Code, which relates to activities that are detrimental to parliamentary democracy.
Mohmad in a statement this evening said the warrant of arrest was obtained from the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
"We will proceed with the applications to place her on the Aseanapol wanted list as well as the Interpol red notice," he said.
Section 124I pertains to the dissemination of false reports, whereby a person found guilty of spreading false reports or making false statements likely to cause public alarm can be jailed for up to five years.
The means of disseminating such information is widely covered in the law, and includes by word of mouth, in writing or publishing in any printed material as well as electronic means.
Section 124B, meanwhile, allows for imprisonment up to 20 years for actions that are detrimental to parliamentary democracy.
Rewcastle-Brown has been accused of using allegedly false or tampered information in Sarawak Report's exposes on 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), obtained from former PetroSaudi International employee Xavier Andre Justo.
The Sarawak Report website was blocked by Malaysian Internet regulators more than two weeks ago purportedly because the site carried false information that could disrupt "national stability".
Justo was arrested in Thailand on June 22, and remains in police custody there for blackmail and extortion. He has yet to be charged.
He had confessed to meeting Rewcastle-Brown as well as other Malaysians in Singapore, where he agreed to handover information on 1MDB.
Rewcastle-Brown as well as The Edge Media Group, which has also reported critically of 1MDB, both deny that the information had been tampered with.
1MDB and PetroSaudi had a joint-venture deal in which US$1.83 billion was allegedly siphoned off with the involvement of Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho.
Malaysian police are investigating 1MDB, as well as information leaks on the probe into 1MDB which allegedly came from among enforcement agencies.
- TMI
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