‘The Kleptocrats’, a documentary about the 1MDB scandal, was launched in an exclusive screening attended by some 70 guests in Kuala Lumpur last night.
The documentary centres on fugitive businessperson Jho Low and his connections with the family of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.
Prominent Malaysian figures who were featured in ‘The Kleptocrats’ included Najib’s brother Nazir Razak, Damansara MP Tony Pua, Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah, National Human Rights Society president Ambiga Sreenevasan and cartoonist Zunar.
International journalists who pursued the 1MDB story for years were also interviewed for the film.
These included The Wall Street Journal’s Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, as well as former New York Times journalist Louise Story. The latter is also an executive producer of ‘The Kleptocrats’…..
“The film is a tribute to the many Malaysians who refused to be silenced, even as they were harassed, charged and arrested,” the documentary’s executive producer Alexander Soros said in a statement…
“significant work is needed to ensure that such scandals do not happen again,” added Soros (below), who is also the deputy chair of Open Society Foundations, an international grantmaking network.
In early 2015 the original producer of this documentary was urging Sarawak Report to do a lengthy interview about breaking the first 1MDB stories about PetroSaudi, Wolf of Wall Street and Aabar’s shady relationships with Jho Low, to name a few.
“All we need is to research your blog and the whole story is already there” he explained “we just want to stick your face in front of a camera and download your brain”.
At which point Sarawak Report asked who was funding the project and why we had not been at least invited to engage in the production, let alone give permission for it?
These questions were refused an answer and for the following three years this blog declined to cooperate with a mysterious project about Malaysia’s kleptocrats that was helping itself to all this blog’s hard efforts and intellectual property, without attempting to support that work in any form whatsoever.
Open Society Foundation, funded by the Soros family, had a short time previously commissioned a report on media in Malaysia, which had (without offering warning or any right to reply) criticised Sarawak Report on many fronts, particulary in claiming our reporting was “sensationalist”, used “tabloid language” and was “unsubstantiated”. The writer suggested that a better anti-corruption blog ought to be commissioned (presumably written by them to be paid for by Soros).
Such snipes did not deter Alex Soros from proceeding to then secretly fund a documentary based on Sarawak Report’s unsupported efforts to expose corruption in Malaysia.
Laterly, Sarawak Report found itself forced to expose this very production, when it became caught up in espionage and infiltration exercises on the part of some of those working with it, who appeared to have engaged with entities working for BN.
More “sensationalism” that was doubtless deplored by the Open Society Foundation.