Arrest warrant issued for British editor over false report on Malaysian PM

Brown was the founder and editor of Sarawak Report, a blog that published stories against the Malaysian government and officials in the past.

In response, Ms Brown told Channel NewsAsia that she would be “ill-advised” to return to Malaysia as long as Najib Razak remains the country’s Prime Minister.

Sarawak Report and Wall Street Journal reported earlier that some 700 million U.S. dollars from 1MDB, a debt-laden state investment company, had been transferred into Najib’s personal account.

Section 124B of the Penal Code states: “Whoever, by any means, directly or indirectly, commits an activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to twenty years”.

Jail term for the offences can be extended to between five and 10 years. It said it would be applying to have her placed on the Interpol Red Notice wanted list, as well as the wanted list of Aseanapol, the inter-Asian police agency, which has its secretariat in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. With The Independent, she has exposed the destruction of Sarawak’s rainforest by the lucrative palm oil industry and Malaysia’s attempts to buy credibility for its environmental policies in the global media. Rewcastle-Brown has been accused of tampering with the 1MDB documents it used in its reports, as part of a scheme to topple Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is also 1MDB’s advisory board chairman.

Rewcastle-Brown has denied the allegation and stood by SR’s reports, however, even saying recently that she is considering taking legal action against her accusers.

The alternative news website was blocked in Malaysia from Jul 20 for “publishing unverified information” and posing a threat to “national stability”, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said.