WSJ allegations proven false again: Tengku Sariffuddin

KUALA LUMPUR: The Wall Street Journal's allegations against Malaysia have been proven to be lies yet again, this time by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said the Prime Minister's Press Secretary Datuk Seri Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad.
He said the WSJ alleged on Tuesday that Goldman Sachs wired US$3 billion (RM12 billion) in proceeds of a 1MDB bond issuance to BSI Bank in Singapore, and that some of these funds were later transferred to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak.
"Today, the Monetary Authority of Singapore stated that "no bank in Singapore received the US$3 billion wire transfer from Goldman Sachs in relation to the bond issuance for 1MDB," he said.
Despite the gravity of the allegations, he said, the WSJ gave no evidence at all to support its claims – as is now standard process in its Malaysia reporting.
In a cowardly tactic to avoid being sued, the WSJ attributes all its allegations to anonymous sources, such as "people familiar with the matter" and unnamed "investigators", he said.
Tengku Sariffuddin said these sources may or may not exist, or could just be proxies of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his failed Anti-Najib campaign.
Malaysians have no way of knowing as the WSJ refused to name a single source, he said.
He said that every week more of the WSJ allegations and anonymous sources were proven to be lies, such as the WSJ alleging that the Prime Minister was not interviewed by Malaysian investigators when he was interviewed for multiple hours on Dec 5, 2015.
Or the WSJ's multiple reports that the Prime Minister had appointed Tan Sri Irwan Serigar Abdullah to be the new Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, when this was entirely false.
Tengku Sariffuddin said it was now clear that the WSJ had abandoned all pretence at independent reporting on Malaysia.
By presenting the unverified lies of the government's opponents as facts, the WSJ has become their willing tool – in their openly declared campaign to unseat a democratically-elected government, using 1MDB as an excuse, he said.
Tengku Sariffuddin said it should be investigated why the WSJ was publishing so many proven lies about one country, and why an international newspaper was taking sides in Malaysia's internal affairs. — Bernama