Confession videos a pack of lies, says Rewcastle-Brown

KUALA LUMPUR: Former Sarawak Tribune editor Lester Melanyi is peddling a pack of lies in his confession videos, Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown claimed.

She denied the allegation by the 49-year-old that she met Petrosaudi International blackmail suspect Xavier Andre Justo in London.

She also maintained that most of Lester’s accusations in his latest confession video were untrue.

“He is making it all up,” she said in an email response to The Star, following the release of Part Two of Lester’s video confession.

“No, I did not meet Justo in London,” she said.

However, she confirmed that she funded air tickets for Lester’s travels to London and had engaged him to work in Radio Free Sarawak on a semi-voluntary basis “despite being widely warned in Kuching against the move”.

Rewcastle-Brown also denied that the whistleblower website was bankrolled by Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) as Lester claimed.

“He is clutching at straws because some friends from BMF came over and visited the radio station while he was there.

“We had a party. I have an independent donor for the radio site and I use that to fund my travel and my website manager manages that side of what I do and he works pro bono on SR’s needs,” she said.

She said the website designer, whom Lester named as the one who fabricated the fake emails and agreements to fuel Sarawak Report’s apparent mission to criminalise 1MDB and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, was a “figment of his troubled imagination”.

“If you Google him (which I did) it turns out that it is the name of a Hollywood film star of yesteryear. My website is run by a nice gentleman by the name of Christian.”

Rewcastle-Brown said she pitied Lester and his “very nice family” and that he was being used as a diversionary tactic.

“It is most shameful that this is being done by a political party that is in a position of responsibility,” she claimed.