The Edge: We were not involved in any conspiracy

PETALING JAYA: The Edge Media Group and its staff were not involved in any political conspiracy to allegedly topple Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the company said in a statement.

The media company’s chairman Datuk Tong Kooi Ong and publisher and CEO Ho Kay Tat said they did not have any political agenda when its publications The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily published articles on state-owned investment firm 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

“We have been publishing numerous articles on 1MDB since 2013 when it became apparent it was facing financial difficulties,” they said as reported in news portal The Malaysian Insider.

They said as a business media, their interest in 1MDB was purely to uncover what happened at 1MDB and the various financial and business dealings it undertook since its inception in 2009.

“Anyone who has read our various exposes would know that we have never linked the prime minister or even the government in general to the problems at 1MDB.

“We had never given 1MDB a political spin in any of our articles.

“We pursued only corporate governance issues, and held the management, the board of directors and the various third parties which have had dealings with 1MDB accountable for what had happened, which should be the case with any corporate entity,” they said in the statement.

The Edge’s response follows a report in the New Straits Times yesterday on an alleged conspiracy to oust Najib that supposedly involved several politicians and Clare Rewcastle-Brown, the editor of UK-based website Sarawak Report. Both Tong and Ho were named in the report.

Refuting the allegations that they had tampered with evidence related to 1MDB, both Tong and Ho warned that they would take legal action against those who continued to make unfounded allegations against them and the media group.