JULY 6 — The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) boldly published an article claiming availability of evidence against Malaysia’s Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak linking him with financial fraud in relation to funds from 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

WSJ was brave enough to even say they conducted their own investigations before releasing such a statement alleging the prime minister to corruption. They claim to have evidence of fund transfer direct to Najib’s bank accounts that have been sent to both the Attorney General and the prime minister himself.

From a neutral standpoint, I am startled they did not show any evidence of bank transactions and neither did they produce any bank documents.

They produced certificates from the Companies Commission of Malaysia and that alone is not enough to accuse someone of financial fraud.

Next comes the question of how reliable is the WSJwhen it comes to reports involving foreign politics?

In the past, there have been numerous false reports published by WSJ and some have even got them in hot soup.

Singapore

In the year 2008, Singapore sued WSJ for publishing an article allegedly casting doubt on Singapore’s judiciary integrity. When WSJ was slapped with contempt of court and was proven wrong in reporting, all they did was apologise to their Asian readers online and never published a hard copy of printed apology. Hence, only the online readers saw the acknowledged apology from WSJ.

Singapore’s late Lee Kuan Yew on multiple occasions clashed with WSJ as he alleged them to biased reporting and even went to the extend of drastically reducing their distribution in Singapore.

Prophet Muhammad

The authors of WSJ also got themselves in a mess when they tragically reported on a very controversial film few years ago that depicted Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) offensively.

They alleged that the movie was made by an Israeli-American named Sam Bacile, with a cost US$5 million (RM19 million) and was financed by money culled from more than 100 jewish donours. It takes guts to reveal a name and everyone thought they had substantial evidence to make such claims. As investigations drew to a close, it was revealed that the report by WSJ was completely wrong.

There were no records of any person name Sam Bacile in US or Israel. As the Journal was proved to be perpetuating falsehood.

As time went by and the truth unfolded, it was evident that the WSJ’s spread of Anti-Semitism was wrong. When people wrote to them demanding an explanation, WSJ journalists were unreachable and never responded. Finally, on the 14^th of September 2012, WSJ issued a statement of correction.

Boston Bombing

After the infamous Boston Marathon bombing, WSJ erroneously reported that the police had found five additional explosive devices, of which two have been deployed. Minutes later the federal authorities dismissed the report by WSJ as inaccurate.

Tesla

In 2014, WSJ was again ridiculed by false reporting when they claimed that the electric car-maker Tesla suffered a plunge in sales for one of their models. The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk took to Twitter on October 28, 2014 and called bluff on the report published by WSJ by revealing sales volumes and point-blankly saying the Journal is “incorrect” in its reporting.

Russians

In 2015, in a WSJ article called ‘The Russians Are Coming, Again’ reported that Russian proxies shelled a city called Avdiyivka in Ukraine when Ukrainians ceased-fire. It was later shown that the report was a mere speculation and WSJ were accused of ‘journalistic malpractice’.

Over the years, WSJ have been accused of deceptive journalism from various organisations around the world.

With the so-called ‘evidence’ submitted to Najib and the only way to settle the score is a legal suit against WSJ. Let the independent investigation teams do their work and the truth be told.

The allegations by WSJ against the prime minister is serious and drastic measures indeed needs to be taken if the allegations are false.

If they are proven to be true, then Najib has no choice but to resign.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.