PETALING JAYA: Journalist B. Nantha Kumar, who was arrested for allegedly soliciting bribes from foreign worker agents, maintains he never did so but was working on a story to expose syndicates.
Nantha Kumar, who was released on bail on Tuesday (March 4) after being remanded by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for four days, said he was offered a bribe during a sting operation but turned it down.
"I want to make it clear that I did not solicit a bribe.
"I neither requested RM100,000 nor negotiated... to settle for RM20,000," the Malaysiakini journalist said in a statement on Friday (March 7).
Nantha claimed he received information on Feb 6 about a "fly syndicate", which allegedly falsified Immigration exit and entry stamps for foreign workers without them being physically present, operating at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
"After conducting my investigation, I published my first report on Malaysiakini on Feb 19.
"Despite a police report being lodged, the authorities failed to take firm action.
"My second report on Feb 22 exposed the involvement of Pakistani agents in this syndicate.
"Before publishing it, I contacted the two named agents for their comments.
"One denied involvement, while the other did not respond," he said.
However, he said in his account of the events leading up to his arrest on Feb 28, a senior officer from the Home Ministry and a Selangor Immigration Department director had reached out to him for more information and he agreed to cooperate.
"Based on my research, I had strong grounds to believe that the state Immigration director was not linked to any corrupt activities or syndicates.
"On Feb 24, my source informed me that another Immigration intelligence director was trying to contact me.
"I went to its Intelligence Department in Putrajaya, left my contact number with an officer, and requested for the director to contact me," Nantha Kumar said.
However, he said he never received any response but was later contacted by the agents he was investigating.
"On Feb 26, one of the Pakistani agents mentioned in my article contacted me to deny his involvement, and I offered to publish a rebuttal.
"He claimed that another person had approached him offering to 'settle' the matter.
"I made it clear to him that I had never asked anyone to speak on my behalf.
"I later met the two Pakistani agents at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, which is registered under the name of a former high-ranking immigration officer.
"They took me to a private room where one of the agents claimed someone had asked for RM400,000 to settle the case with the police, MACC, Immigration and Malaysiakini.
"They offered me RM50,000 and were prepared to pay me RM20,000 on the spot.
"I firmly refused and made it clear that I am not for sale," he said.
After that meeting, Nantha Kumar said he immediately went to the state Immigration director’s office to discuss the case and compare evidence, but the director was unable to take action without financial transaction records.
Nantha Kumar said he then agreed to "go undercover" to gather stronger evidence but did not inform his superiors in Malaysiakini as he was worried that they might stop him because of the risks involved.
"While my editors know me as someone willing to take risks, they have also advised me to be cautious, especially since I am dealing with syndicates that may go to great lengths to silence those who expose them," he said.
Nantha Kumar said he then contacted the agent and met him at a hotel in the hope of gathering proof, when he was handed an envelope believed to contain a bribe.
"Surprised, I took it... as evidence to be handed to the state Immigration director.
"Within seconds, more than a dozen MACC officers confronted me," he said.
Nantha Kumar said he had been working on exposes of syndicates related to foreign workers for over a year and had never profited from them.
"It was these agents who repeatedly offered to bribe me.
"If I had wanted to profit out of this article, I could have contacted the 'mastermind' before the initial story was published to ask for a hefty sum," he said.
Nantha Kumar also said he had chosen to meet the agents at a hotel filled with surveillance cameras on a day when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was at an event there.
On Tuesday, MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki said the investigation was ongoing and several others would be called in to complete the probe.
The day before, Azam had said the arrest was based on a report that had been lodged.
