UK journalist says Malaysian jail sentence is ‘revenge’ for bringing down prime minister

British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown was preparing for her work day as usual when her phone started lighting up with WhatsApp messages. “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry”, read one text.

The 64-year-old investigative journalist was as shocked as anyone to read that she had been sentenced in absentia to two years in prison by a Malaysian court, sparking a flurry of messages of support from her alarmed friends, colleagues and family. She was convicted of defaming the country’s former queen, Sultanah Nur Zahirah, in her book The Sarawak Report – The Inside Story of the 1MDB Exposé.

Once online, she found out about the ruling in local Malay news reports. She used Google’s translation services to figure out what was happening. “It was a surprise,” she tells The Independent. “No one told me there was going to be a trial.

“Perhaps given what’s happened to me, in the past, in the course of this whole Malaysia experience… it is just the latest in a number of extraordinary actions that have been taken [against me],” she says.

The 1MDB scandal toppled the government of former prime minister Najib Razak. Corruption charges were also brought against Goldman Sachs executives.

An investigation by Rewcastle Brown led to the uncovering of allegations of massive financial theft by then Malaysian prime minister Razak. The journalist, who is also the founder and editor of the website Sarawak Report, says she was targeted for her reporting on the multibillion-dollar scandal that landed Razak in jail.

She believes that “this case has been pursued relentlessly against me and I cannot not conclude that it is actually a form of revenge”. And she says there are “indications that it has actually been managed and supported by associates of the former prime minister, people who have managed the former prime minister’s case, who have pursued similar legal actions against me in the past, and I think this is part of the same pattern, this relentless pursuit of me”.

The 1MDB development fund was established shortly after Razak assumed the role of prime minister in 2009. It was created to promote economic development in Malaysia through global partnerships and foreign direct investment. Rewcastle Brown’s investigation revealed that over $4.5bn was embezzled from the fund by Razak’s associates, who then laundered this money through a complex network of bank accounts in the US and other countries.

The laundered funds were used to finance Hollywood movies and fund lavish acquisitions such as hotels, a 300ft luxury superyacht, artworks by Monet and Van Gogh, and jewellery. More than $700m of this stolen money ended up in Razak’s personal bank accounts, according to the US Department of Justice.

Rewcastle Brown says the case against her centred on a misidentification in the first edition of her book that the former queen had claimed was defamatory. She says the mistake was amended in subsequent prints, and tells The Independent that Nur Zahirah had informed her that “she would be happy to meet with me. And we had arranged [to meet].

“I, actually, at my own expense, flew out from London to meet [her], to have a little tea with her and perhaps issue a joint statement that we had, you know, settled the matter.”

The meeting was suddenly cancelled, she says, without explanation, after which two defamation cases were brought against Rewcastle Brown in Malaysia’s courts. One was dismissed in October 2022 by the high court in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, though the queen’s legal team has appealed the decision. The other, in which Rewcastle Brown was found guilty, was brought in the queen’s local magistrate’s court.

“I see it as a manipulative case [against me],” she says.

The 1MDB scandal shook the global financial world, pushed the offshore finance industry into turmoil, and left numerous high-profile personalities in Hollywood, Vegas, and New York in a state of embarrassment, the Centre for Investigative Journalism states.

Her sentencing came just a few days after Razak failed to get a full pardon from the Malaysian king for his crimes. Instead, on 2 February, Malaysia’s pardons board officially declared a reduction in the jail sentence and fine, following a meeting that took place on 29 January. This meeting was presided over by the former king, the ruler of Pahang, Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah.

The decision to reduce Razak’s jail sentence by half triggered widespread indignation among Malaysians. Many criticised the move as a disdainful act towards the justice system and a setback to prime minister Anwar Ibrahim’s efforts to combat corruption.

Rewcastle Brown says Razak did not get “what he had hoped would be a full pardon from the king for his major crimes. There was a widespread belief that he would be fully pardoned and released from jail.

“And so the next thing is we find that I’m sentenced to a similar length jail sentence … as the journalist who exposed 1MDB, the matter that placed him in jail.

“I’m in a situation now where I could be arrested at any place of the globe and faced with an extradition warrant from Malaysia,” she says. She is protesting the ruling through the British government.

Rewcastle Brown says it feels as if she is “living in a scary thriller”. The book, based on those initial investigative reports, was published in 2018.

In 2018, Malaysia held elections. “It was the first time his [Razak’s] party lost power since independence. Without a doubt, the 1MDB scandal and his corruption played a large part in his removal from office,” the journalist says.

Shawn Crispin, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ representative for Southeast Asia, says the organisation is calling on the Malaysian courts to overturn the defamation ruling.

“Malaysia should scrap the outrageous prison sentence given to Clare Rewcastle Brown and stop harassing the journalist over her crucial reporting on the country’s 1MDB scandal, recognised as one of the world’s biggest-ever corruption cases,” he said in a statement earlier this month.

“The harsh ruling will deter all reporters from investigating official corruption in Malaysia and represents a clear and present danger to press freedom in the country.”