KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 — The owner and publisher of The Edge Media Group today denied that the series of stories run by two of their publications on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) were part of an alleged conspiracy to topple Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
In a one-page joint-statement, the group’s Chairman Datuk Tong Kooi Ong and its publisher and chief executive Ho Kay Tat claimed that purpose of the articles published on 1MDB were “purely to uncover what happened at 1MDB and the various financial and business dealings it undertook since its inception in 2009”.
“We wish to reiterate that The Edge Media Group and ourselves were and are not involved in any political conspiracy, nor did we have any political agenda when we published articles on the problems at 1Malaysia Development Bhd,” the statement read.
“We have been publishing numerous articles on 1MDB since 2013 when it became apparent it was facing financial difficulties,” they added.
Both Tong and Ho stressed that they “have never linked the Prime Minister or even the government in general” to 1MDB’s troubles, and that they have “never given 1MDB a political spin in any of our articles”.
They refuted the suggestion by local daily the New Straits Times earlier today, and by any other media and persons, that the group was part of an “elaborate conspiracy to topple a democratically-elected prime minister” or that they had tampered with evidence related to 1MDB.
“We will take legal action against those who continue to make these unfounded allegations against us and The Edge Media Group,” they said in the statement.
Earlier today, New Straits Times and sister paper Berita Harian ran front-page stories claiming an elaborate conspiracy to topple Najib involving whistleblower site Sarawak Report’s editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, Tong, Ho, members of the federal opposition and former PetroSaudi International director Xavier Andre Justo.
The stories cited alleged WhatsApp correspondence between Rewcastle-Brown and several others, discussing the purported plan to oust Najib and how she allegedly stated that “maybe we have changed the destiny of one country”.
