THE sultanah of Terengganu has sent a letter of demand to Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown over alleged defamatory statements in the latter’s newly published book on the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal.

Sultanah Nur Zahirah is expected file a defamation suit seeking an unspecified amount in damages and an apology over allegations that she was involved in a conspiracy with Penang-born businessman Low Taek Jho and the government administration of the 1MDB affair. 

The sultanah’s lawyer, Mohd Haaziq Pillay Abdullah, told The Malaysian Insight that a letter of demand has been sent to Rewcastle-Brown in London.

The alleged offending excerpt was on Page 3 of Rewcastle-Brown’s book, The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose.

The alleged offending excerpt read: 

“In April he (Low) had netted himself an official advisory role at the newly set-up sovereign wealth fund designed to invest the oil revenues from the Malaysian State of Terengganu (since elections in this oil state had just been won by the opposition, BN was ruthlessly looking for ways to divert its revenues into a federally controlled entity).

“Jho (Low) was also friendly with a key player in Terengganu, the wife of the sultan, whose acquiescence was needed to set up the fund and he later cited her support as having been crucial to his obtaining the advisory position. This was the fund that would shortly be converted into the scandalous entity known as 1MDB ...”

1MDB was formerly known as Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA) before being renamed in 2009 under the Najib Razak administration.

Haaziq said the suit would focus on this passage.

“That’s the worst part of it. They just put that there in the prologue and never commented anything else. It’s like slaughtering someone and leaving them to hang,” the lawyer said.

“This is definitely a defamation suit. We are going all out.”

Rewcastle-Brown told The Malaysian Insight she would consult her lawyers. 

“I never implied impropriety on her part, nor even of her sister-in-law, who with her husband plainly was closely connected in business with Jho (as mentioned in) Billion Dollar Whale. 

“I just said that Jho bragged about socialising with the family, which put him in a good position to get the job of adviser to the fund, headed by the sultan. I did not suggest she received any kind of commission or was involved in TIA.”

Rewcastle-Brown’s book was launched on September 8, nearly a fortnight before The Wall Street Journal journalists Tom Wright and Bradley Hope released Billion Dollar Whale, another book on the 1MDB scandal. 

Rewcastle-Brown attacked the WSJ authors for failure to credit Sarawak Report with information on the US$680 million transferred into Najib’s personal bank account in 2013. 

Later in a statement posted on Sarawak Report, Rewcastle-Brown apologised to Sultanah Nur Zahirah of Terengganu if “she has been upset by any misinterpretations of our meaning”.

She added that she did not suggest that the sultanah was “in a conspiracy” with Jho Low or “involved in government administration in the 1MDB affair” or that the sultanah was in any way personally connected with the TIA.

“We note that the connection between Jho Low and the Terengganu royal family was in fact far closer to the sister of the sultan, with whom Jho was directly connected in a business sense, and her husband.

“On this basis, later print runs of the book have referred to the sister of the sultan rather than the wife of the sultan as being Jho Low’s prime social connection in Terengganu,” she added. – September 27, 2018.