Journo who exposed 1MDB scandal returns to Malaysia

Journo who exposed 1MDB scandal returns to Malaysia

Sarawak Report is once more available to internet users in Malaysia after being blocked for the past two years.
Sarawak Report is once more available to internet users in Malaysia after being blocked for the past two years.

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian-born British journalist known for her dogged reporting of the 1MDB scandal arrived home on Saturday after the new government tore up her arrest warrant.

Clare Rewcastle-Brown, editor of the Sarawak Report news website, has published numerous stories related to the scandal, including details of the alleged transfer of $681 million to bank accounts held by disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak.

Najib, who founded 1Malaysia Development Bhd, has consistently denied wrongdoing. 

Police this week raided properties linked to the former prime minister and his wife and seized a huge haul of luxury handbags, jewellery and cash as the investigation he suppressed while in office was revived by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Born and raised in Sarawak, on the Malaysian side of Borneo, Rewcastle-Brown had been living in exile after Malaysian authorities issued a warrant for her arrest in 2015, citing activities "detrimental to parliamentary democracy".

Sarawak Report and Medium.com, a blogging platform that hosted her site, were also blocked in the country.

She returned to Malaysia after learning that the sites had been unblocked and the warrant lifted by the new government led Dr Mahathir, who led the opposition to a surprise election victory last week over his erstwhile protege, Najib.

"It was very relaxed at the airport, no problems with immigration," she told Reuters in a brief phone interview. "It's a big sigh of relief from me."

During 2014 and 2015, Sarawak Report published a series of groundbreaking articles, with documents that detailed how money was allegedly siphoned off from 1MDB.

The website also broke the news that former attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, who was sacked in 2015, had been planning to charge Najib with graft.

Mahathir, who met with Abdul Gani on Tuesday, confirmed the account at a news conference the next day.

Rewcastle-Brown said she had not been invited to meet with the new administration and hoped only to see friends she had not spoken with after she was blocked from entering Malaysia. She is the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Gordon Brown.

"It was a tough battle for all of us. ... The previous administration spent so much time and money trying to get me," she said.

"But I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have a deep down confidence that Malaysia could come through and this could have a good outcome."

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