Sarawak Report Exposes Sean Murray’s Kuching Construction Connection

Kuching
Saturday, 5th November 2011

The latest article by Sarawak Report make me lost confident in MACC ( Or are this Commission really mean Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission or just Malaysian Anti-Car and Cow?). Despite so many revelations being made but this Commission still not taking any action. Are they waiting for people power like in Egypt and Libya to punish this family?

Sean Murray and Jamilah Taib (Taib Mahmud's eldest daughter)

We can reveal that the husband of Taib’s eldest daughter, the Canadian, Hisham (Sean) Murray, has grabbed control of one of Kuching’s most lucrative property developments on the so-called Kuching Isthmus, a venture sponsored by the State Government.

The RM380 million luxury hotel and office complex was announced at the end of last year as a key initiative on the site, which has been designated by the State Government as a ’Special Development Area’ and is being touted as the new Central Business District for the capital.

CMS Land Sdn Bhd, a joint subsidiary of the largely Taib family-owned company CMS and the State Government, acquired ownership of the entire 240 acres of development land on the Isthmus, after it was alienated from local title-holders through a series of controversial forced purchases, in the late 1990s.

‘Ripe for development’ – the whole area just outside Kuching has been turned over to the Taib family firm CMS in a ‘joint venture’ with the state

If that was not favouritism enough, the company has now been granted numerous incentives to build through the injection of huge sums of public money into the area.

CMS Land has officially estimated that the project has a “gross development value of RM2.8 billion“!

However, we can demonstrate that this latest major construction project on the site is actually being driven forward by a mysterious off-shore company, run by an inner-circle of Taib’s immediate family.

The controlling share in the Joint Venture, which is situated on 10 acres provided by CMS Land, belongs to a company called Premier Cottage Sdn Bhd.  The Director of that company is Sean Murray, along with Taib’s other daughter Hanifah and his favoured sister-in-law, Gertie Chong.   However, the sole shareholder of Premier Cottage is an off-shore company, Pioneer City Enterprises Limited, which supplies no profile or country address, despite having been awarded a significant public project.

The planned Kuching Tower - projected to be the tallest building in Sarawak

This is not the first time that the Murrays have claimed a stake in the Isthmus. Their company City Gate Corporation (part of the Sakto Group based in Ottawa) also snaffled a $110 million dollar contract to design the much talked about Kuching Tower, together with another company called ZW Group.

ZW Group, interestingly, shares the same address as the Ottawa-based Aberdeen Project Facilitators Inc, who were formally awarded the management of the Kuching Tower project back in 2006.

The Director of Aberdeen Project Facilitators and the Project Manager of ZW both happen to be one Thady Murray.

Thady Murray also acts as the President of City Gate Corporation and is one of the many members of Sean Murray’s family, who work out of the Sakto/City Gate Headquarters in their Preston Tower building, Ottawa!

Fat contract – the Kuching Tower project is also being managed by the Murrays in Ottawa

 ’My family don’t do business in Sarawak!’ 

These discoveries make a further mockery of Taib’s claims that his family ‘does no business in Sarawak’.  During the recent State Election campaign the Chief Minister countered critics of his family’s wealth by claiming his children and relatives had earned all their money through business activities outside Sarawak and that he had never exploited his political position!

One of Canada's richest couples - but the Murrays claim it is all self-made !

What Taib Mahmud Said :

“I don’t want conflict of interest to haunt me all the time. [if] I do business inside the country, people will say I use my influence to enrich myself, so we did it outside the country” [Taib Mahmud]  

Taib went on to claim that the reason why his eldest daughter Jamilah and her husband Sean (Hisham) Murray are amongst the flashiest and richest couples in Ottawa, Canada, likewise owes to their business acumen in that country and not to wealth gained from Sarawak:

“Jamilah’s business in Canada is successful because she is good” [Taib Mahmud]

To the contrary, it is well known that Taib and his children each own scores of companies in Sarawak, all of which prosper owing to key monopolies, state contracts, timber and plantation concessions, which he himself has granted.

Taib & Sons - Chief Minister turns the earth for CMS Land with son Abu Bekir (CMS Chief) at his side

All Taib’s brothers and sisters have equally benefited from the same corruption, so it is small wonder that there is little opportunity left for anyone else.

Indeed, Taib’s statement that his family do no business in Sarawak is no more truthful than his claim that 80% of Sarawak’s jungle has been left untouched.  Clearly, the Chief Minister follows the principle that if you are going to tell a lie, you should make it a big, fat lie!

Murray family business?

It would seem that a similar approach is being taken by the Taib family regarding their explanations for the millions of dollars worth of property investment in Canada and beyond.  The multi-million dollar enterprise Sakto has been consistently portrayed as a ‘Murray family business’, which has expanded into the UK, US and Australia.

A Murray family company? – from Chris Murray’s Wikipedia entries

Numerous members of Sean Murray’s family now work in Sakto and Murray’s cousin, Christopher Murray, who runs the subsidiary Ridgeford Properties in London, told one journalist that the whole enterprise was started by a previous generation of Murrays and was a ‘Murray family company’.  This impression is maintained, for example, in Wikipedia entries like those above.

But, in fact Sakto was started by the Taibs in 1983 with an initial shareholder investment of over $4 million, all before Jamilah met with her future husband Sean.  Those interest-free and unconditional shareholder loans increased every year, amounting to over $9 million dollars by the time Sean gained a foothold in the company as a Director following his marriage to Jamilah in 198.  By 1993 those shareholders (who can remain anonymous in Canada) had incresed the investment to over $25 million and the company now has properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Shareholder loans rose each year in the first 10 years for Sakto, whose first Directors were Jamilah, Mahmud (Abu Bekir) Taib and Onn Mahmud

Likewise, the sister company Sakti was started in 1987 by three of Taib’s children and two of Taib’s brothers in the US.  And Ridgeford Properties in London was established by a company called Astar Properties in 1996, which operated out of the same BVI Trust as the CMS Trust Fund.

Ridgeford still benefits from a multi-million pound interest-free loan provided by a company called TESS Investments, which operates out of that same BVI office, even though formal ownership of the company has been transferred to City Gate International Corporation in Canada, which is directed by Sean Murray and his wife Jamilah Taib.

In fact, despite claims that Sean Murray ‘owns’ Sakto and related companies, available documentation indicates a pattern where he acts as a Director of these companies, while actual ownership remains with the Taib family into which he has married!

Early days – Sean married Jamilah in 1987, becoming Hisham Murry and earning his first Directorship in one of the Sakto Companies, which had been running since 1983

Thus, although he is a Director of Sakti in the US, court records in 2008 demonstrated that the company shares belonged to his wife and other Taib family members. Likewise Sitehost Pty in Australia, where he is a Director, but it is his wife who is the shareholder of the company that owns the Adelaide Hilton and the surrounding city centre shopping complex.

Profiting in Sarawak

Vision for a hotel to overlook the Borneo Convention Centre, whose Chairman is Taib’s sister Raziah Mahmud!

Given the claims about Jamilah and Sean’s ’self-made’ wealth, it is therefore surely surprising that they have taken such opportunities in Kuching’s biggest building project for the next decade.

Surely, to avoid those accusations of conflict of interest, they should be seeking to invest in projects anywhere else in the world, apart from their father in law’s own capital city on a state sponsored development?

Likewise, for a Chief Minister anxious to show that he is not favouring his family or allowing them to do business in Sarawak, is not it extraordinary to have awarded the latest multi-million ringgit project to a company Directed by his Canadian son in law Sean Murray?

However, of course there is no shortage of precedent . On the Isthmus, as elsewhere in Sarawak, all the money-making opportunities have been given to Taib’s family, with the full authorisation of his Planning Ministry.

Indeed the only projects that have been started so far have all been funded by the State, including the RM200 million Borneo Convention Centre, the only building so far completed, and the  RM 230 million Sarawak Energy Building.  Both contracts were of course awarded to CMS, whose Managing Directors are Taib’s son and son-in-law and whose largest shareholders are Taib’s children and late wife.

In the case of the Joint Venture Hotel project a CMS announcement last December revealed that the  new hotel project would be carried out by a private company Isthmus Developments Sdn Bhd. CMS Land (49% owned by the state body SEDC) would provide the land, but the controlling 51% shareholding of the Joint Venture would go to the previously unheard of Premier Cottage.

Isthmus Developments is the government-backed joint venture company set up by CMS and SEDC to build the major hotel complex

Premier Cottage is in turn owned by the mysterious Pioneer City Enterprises Limited, which is a non-Malaysian company that offers no details about itself in the Register of Companies!

Who owns Pioneer City, the company which has been given control over the state-backed hotel and apartment project on the Kuching Isthmus? Are they a suitable construction company? - there are many questions, but no answers given Sarawak's lack of transparency

Time for Murray to explain Sakto’s fortune

As one of the three Directors of Premier Cottag, along with Hanifah and Gertie, Sean Murray is one person who IS in a position to tell the people of Sarawak who owns the company that is now about to control one of Kuching’s major investment projects.  After all, it is taking place on land that was alienated by the government, in the name of the public interest and development.

Key man – Sean (Hisham) Murray has become the Director of a growing number of Taib’s foreign property companies

He and the Chief Minister should also surely explain, why they think this example of the Taib family doing business in a Sarawak Special Development zone, should not be considered a conflict of interest or an abuse of power by family members of the Chief Minister?

As this is a publicly backed investment, made possible by the alienation of land from its original owners and assisted by all manner of state support, the public is entitled to know about the suitability and track record of the company that has been entrusted with the job.

They are also entitled to know who is involved in order to ascertain whether dealings have been above board.

Furthermore, the shareholders of CMS, as well as the taxpayers funding the SEDC (Sarawak Economic Development Corporation), should also be entitled to know who owns Pioneer City Enterprises, because their Directors have provided the valuable building site in return for a joint shareholding with an anonymous venture!

Winners and losers

Taib & Sons – the Chief Minister and son Abu Bekir Taib (Chief of CMS) with a model of their planned CBD

While we wait for answers, it is worth remembering who loses and who gains from Sarawak’s so-called ‘Development’ projects.

The Kuching Isthmus was first earmarked for possible development back in 1973 and subjected to a notorious Section 47 Order under the Land Law.  However, for the following two decades nothing at all was done with the project and the government issued numerous long leases on the land to unsuspecting purchasers.

Then suddenly in the mid-90s Taib, in his role as Planning Minister, decided to revive the project and move on with alienating the land.  Under any principle of natural justice or good governance the original order should have lapsed, but Taib and his henchmen took the opportunity to demand the land at the original 1973 prices!

In one case a land-owner, who had invested all their savings in the district of Muara Tebas, was kicked off their land for a mere RM 6,628.78 per hectare.  This is land that CMS Land simultaneously evaluated at roughly RM 1 million a hectare, according to the details laid out in the Joint Venture Agreement - over a hundred times as much!

The dreary reality – So far virtually no development has taken place on what is now scrub-land, except for the public funded BCC and SEB building.

The Kuching Isthmus Development, therefore, represents just one more example in Sarawak, where development has meant fabulous wealth and opportunities for Taib’s inner-circle of family and cronies and destitution and disaster for the smaller people he has been willing to exploit.

Time and again DAP and PKR opposition politicians have demanded an explanation for the disgraceful treatment of the Malay and Chinese inhabitants of the Kuching Isthmus, many of them fishermen who have lived there for generations.

Now they have further confirmation that the continuing enrichment of the Taibs is the driving pattern behind this development, and that includes their overseas family members.

End timber corruption

Canada HQ – how many hectares of priceless Borneo jungle were sacrificed to build this?

Campaigners across the world are currently stepping up their campaign to force world governments to implement the UN’s anti-money laundering legislation and investigate the Taib-related multi-million dollar property portfolios in Canada, the US, UK and Australia.

Most of these investments are now directed by Sean Murray from his Ottawa base in Canada, through the companies he runs with his wife, Taib’s daughter Jamilah, and a string of his own family members. 

All of these companies can be traced to original investments by the Taib family, whose entire wealth has been founded on Taib Mahmud’s corrupt exploitation of the State of Sarawak.

Read More HERE

Mupok Aku

MACC told to probe Taib's HK connection

Kuching
Saturday, 25th June 2011


Sarawak Report suggests that such a probe could reveal the Taib family's Hong Kong connection to their immense wealth.

Whistleblower website Sarawak Report has suggested that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigate Abdul Taib Mahmud family's Hong Kong connection which could shed light on their immense wealth.

"...Delving into these business concerns (in Hong Kong) will throw up some intriguing coincidences, as Sarawak Report's own researches can already demonstrate.

"We can also demonstrate how a number of Taib-linked companies are now owned or being managed out of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) by one of the Philippine's top bankers Franciso C Sebastian, who started his career as a financial advisor in Hong Kong.

"We suggest that investigations in Hong Kong hold the key to tracing the early development of Taib's international web of global investments as the profits from felling Sarawak's rainforests escaped abroad."

The website, which has been targetting the long-serving Sarawak chief minister, says that MACC should start by interviewing Shea Kin Kwok a "mysterious businessman with several links to Taib family companies".

Shea's name first cropped up when the Hong Kong connection to kickbacks on Sarawak timber being shipped to Japan first broke in 1997.

Malaysiakini had at the time reported the Japan media expose of a number of companies that had allegedly paid Regent Star, a Hong Kong-based paper manufacturing company reportedly linked to Taib and his family, RM32 million in kickbacks for receiving export permits for timber.

Taib  subsequently sued Malaysiakini for carrying reports on the timber scandal.

Sarawak Report says it "has now confirmed that (Shea) was in fact the paid secretary to Taib's brother Onn Mahmud".

"His job was to manage Achi Jaya company affairs out of Hong Kong, in particular to control the Achi Jaya linked companies into which payments (for the timber arrangement) were being made."

Maze of companies

Achi Jaya Transportation Sdn Bhd is a majority shareholder in Dewan Niaga (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd, a company that Taib as forestry minister had appointed in 1981 to be the sole agent for timber shipments out of the state.

"The links were glaring," said the website.

"Taib had put his brother Onn's Achi Jaya Corporation in charge of issuing export licences for timber from Sarawak, and another company Regent Star, run by Onn's secretary, was receiving the kickbacks in Hong Kong," it alleged.

It pointed out that Regent Star and Achi Jaya were incorporated the same year.

Shea and another individual, Kho Eng Beng, owned 50 percent each of Regent Star, and the duo "owned and directed" a number of other Hong Kong companies - Grand Will Limited (incorporated 1984), Grand Shine Trading (1983), Herolite investment (1983), Natalite (1983) and Wittaker Company Ltd (1985).

Sarawak Report later argues that Onn is linked to four of these companies and ultimately traces it to Sebastian, asking if the Filipino banker was "acting as an advisor and trustee for Onn Mahmud" to move funds from Hong Kong to tax-haven British Virgin Islands.

Following the money trail

"Another company, Richfold Investment Ltd, was especially interesting, because it was incorporated on the same day and registered at the same office as Regent Star, and again Shea was a director and shareholder."

It has been previously reported that Taib Mahmud's brother Onn Mahmud held 49,998 shares in the company with Shea holding just one.

Sarawak Report then traces events following the exposure of the 2007 timber scandal in relation to all these Hong Kong companies.

"After the kickback scandal broke, an awful lot of coincidences occurred. Grand Will Limited and Regent Star Company Ltd were both dissolved on the same day - Nov 9, 2007.

"On the other hand, Richfold stayed active for another few months, until it too was closed on May 9, 2008."



A month later on Dec 21, 2007, it explains, Grand Will and Regent Star both reopened on the same day, under different directors and shareholders, while a third company, TESS Limited HK also set up.

SR notes how TESS's name is similar to a British Virgin Islands registered company TESS Investments, that it says has been funding Taib's family's investments in the United Kingdom through Ridgeford Properites Ltd.

Another coincidence, notes Sarawak Report, is that TESS Investments was incorporated on Oct 23, 1996 - the day before Ridgeford Properties run by Taib's son-in-law Sean Murray was incorporated in the UK.

Pandora's PO Box

The 'PO Box 438' in British Virgin Islands appears to be a critical link in this intricate web of companies, argues Sarawak Report.

Ridgeford Properties' original shareholder Astar Properties is registered at the same address. The latter coincidentally shares the name of one of the shareholders of a Taib family company Sitehost Pty, that owns the Adelaide Hilton in Australia.

The Australian company Astar has "a non-existent address in Guernsey", notes Sarawak Report.

Also sharing 'PO Box 438' is a trust company under the Taib family's company Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd (CMS), a conglomerate that used to own RHB Bank.

Some of the key owners of CMS are Taib's immediate family members - his late wife Laila (11.23%), daughters Hanifah Hajar (13.85 percent) and Jamilah Hamidah (13.64 percent), and sons Sulaiman (8.94 percent) and Abu Bakir (8.92 percent).

Sarawak Report also reveals that a search of a registered shareholder of TESS Limited HK, a certain TOA Services (British Virgin Islands), also shares the same PO box address.

"Our investigations show, however, that there is no actual company of that name in BVI (British Virgin Islands)," says Sarawak Report.

Too many coincidences

The anti-Taib website says all its investigations suggest a "connection between money taken in by Richfold Investments Ltd in Hong Kong and money paid out to Ridgeford Properties Ltd in the United Kingdom via PO Box 438 BVI (British Virgin Islands)", challenging Taib to deny the links.

It reiterated that Taib needed to explain handing control of the timber shipping licences to his own brother's company while denying any wrongdoing.

This, it said, was especially pertinent, "when millions in shipping kickbacks are discovered to have been extracted by another company owned by his brother's secretary".

Sarawak Report Reveals Taib Lying In August House

Kuching
Friday, 24th June 2011


Sarawak Report excused Taib of lying in the August House regarding his on going Investigation by Swiss President.
Please read the article which was published in Sarawak Report on 22nd June 2011

The Chief Minister has denied he has illegal foreign assets. He previewed the statement, made today in the State Assembly, as a ‘surprise announcement’.


Onlookers would have been surprised if he had announced his resignation, the honourable course of action, given official investigations now underway into his corruption and abuse of power. However, few will have been surprised by his string of denials!
The actual nature of his ‘categorical’ denials were in fact rather confusing, however. What exactly was he denying when he said:
“Let me state categorically that I have no secret Swiss bank account, nor assets or investments of any description. None whatsoever”.Taib in the DUN today.
By this was the Chief Minister denying that he has no bank accounts, assets or investments of any description at all anywhere? Or just in Switzerland? And was he referring to right now at this moment, or is he alleging that he has never, ever had money in Switzerland at any time?

The Chief Minister spent a lot of energy in denial. For example, he even attempted to cast doubt on the actual letters sent by the Swiss President and the Swiss Financial Regulatory body, FINMA, confirming their investigations. Nice try, but the letters and the investigations are genuine.
Whether or not the Chief Minister, or his nominees, still have money in Switzerland, as opposed to other tax havens around the world is what this investigation will presumably uncover. Sarawak Report has certainly demonstrated that the Chief Minister and his family has held assets in the British Virgin Islands (Rodinmass, CMS Bank, Tess Investments) and in Hong Kong and Jersey (SOGO Holdings). The Chief Minister and his family also have assets in Canada, London and Australia as well. Why has he not factored these matters into his denials?
A pattern of denials
The Chief Minister has been forced into denials before. In 2007 he denied (again using the platform of the State Assembly) that he received kickbacks from Japanese shipping companies trying to get licences to take timber out of Sarawak. The companies had been fined by the Japanese tax authorities for not declaring millions of dollars paid to a company which was registered in the name of Shea Kin Kwok in Hong Kong. Shea Kin Kwok was the full-time secretary of Taib’s brother and known business fixer at the time, Onn Mahmud.

In fact, for an office employee, Mr Shea held such an enviable portfolio of investments that one can only conclude that either he worked for the Mahmuds for fun, or that he was in fact their nominee. Mr Shea Kin Kwok has been the registered shareholder of several Hong Kong companies, including Grand Shine (which has shares in Achi Jaya Corporation), Grand Will Ltd, Wittaker Company Ltd, Richfold Investments, Regent Star and Natlite. He was also until as late as 2005 one of the major shareholders of the massive Sarawak Oil Palm Bhd, run by Taib crony Ling Chiong Ho of the logging company Shin Yang. Following the timber kickback scandal his name disappeared from the shareholder list and most of the above companies were dissolved.

Indeed, if the Chief Minister is so anxious to avoid conclusions that he has benefited from family corruption he should be more careful to avoid conflicts of interest involving his close family members and known business associates. Taib should certainly have avoided putting his own brother Onn’s company Achi Jaya Corporation in charge of issuing all timber export licences through the agent Achipeligo, which Onn also owns. It was Achipeligo which referred the Japanese shipping firms to Shea Kin Kwok at Regent Star to make payments in order to get those licences.
In fact Achi Jaya’s stranglehold over the shipping out of Sarawak’s stolen timber for the last 30 years is well known to have become one of the key foundations of the Mahmud family wealth. It has been calculated by insiders that this business has been worth around RM2 billion a year for the past 30 years. This trade has now collapsed with the exhaustion of Sarawak’s forests (which Taib likes to pretend are still over 70% untouched and intact), however, Achi Jaya has now diversified into the equally lucrative business of planting oil palm where the Borneo jungle once stood.
What about some further denials?
Now that Taib has entered a more communicative period, Sarawak Report would like to suggest that he embark on some further crucial denials, every bit as relevant as the ones he made today on the subject of Swiss assets. For example, would he care to deny that he is the beneficiary of the the largest single shareholder of Sarawak’s largest company CMS (made up of former Sarawak State assets and funded largely by Sarawak State contracts handed out by himself)? This shareholder was, of course, his wife, who has been dead for two years.
Would he also deny that he either bought these shares for his wife, in CMS, to the tune of hundreds of millions of ringgit, or that he acquired them on her behalf for free by corrupt means? Otherwise, how did his wife, who was not a lady of independent means come by them? Likewise, how did his young children acquire the remaining bulk of the assets of this enormous company – assets which they still own?
Would Taib further like to deny that he has handed huge tracts of Sarawak State lands to members of his own family for free or at nominal prices in a clear abuse of his control of the State Planning and Resources Ministry? Many of these handouts were then rapidly sold on for millions of ringgit of profit just days or weeks later (see the numerous documented examples of form of corruption in Sarawak Report).
Would Taib also care to deny that he has abused his control over State contracts as Finance Minister to ensure that the most lucrative contracts are nearly always handed to family concerns such as CMS, Naim Cendera, Kumpualan Parabena, Titanium Management and Kumpulan Construction without any attempt to place these contracts out to proper open tender? Time and again these contracts have then been sub-contracted to more effective construction companies for substantially less – (for example The Bengoh Dam, the DUN Parliament Building, the Kuching Sewer System and plenty of other documented examples of this form of corruption on Sarawak Report).
Carrying on, would Taib like to deny that he has placed his nominees and family members in control of nearly all the key state industries and also private industries controlling Sarawak’s economy? His cousin and proxy Hamid Sepawi controls numerous positions such as the Chairman of Sesco (Sarawak’s State Electricity) and also Chairman ( and top shareholder) of Sarawak Plantation Bhd, whose assets are predominantly former state lands.
Would Taib like to deny that he works hand in glove with the Sarawak’s key timber barons, handing them licences without an open tender process in return for huge kickbacks?
Would Taib also care to explain how he lives such a lavish lifestyle off the back of his modest Ministerial salary of around RM 20,000 per month? For example, how out of this salary has he managed to obtain a classic car collection, deck his family in rubies and other flash gems, fund donations worth millions of ringgit to foreign universities such as Adelaide University and indeed to pay lavish sums on trite memorabilia such as the US$2 million he is believed to have spent on purchasing Liberace’s ex-piano?
Others can without doubt add to the list of denials they would like to hear from the Chief Minister of Sarawak.

Mupok Aku

Protest Against Taib In London Will Spread to Sarawak Soon

Kuching
Tuesday, 1st March 2011

In Malaysia, only the Barisan Nasional supporters are allowed to gather or to attend any ceramah. As for the oppositions, if they do so a troop of police or dub as BN dog by the opposition will be despatched to the scene by the "higher authority" to stop the gathering.
The recent incident happened in Lawas when Baru Bian on 23rd February 2011 was stopped by the police from talking to his supporters who came from as far as Bario and Ba Kelalan just to listen to their leadersand to meet him.
But this unfairly treatment by the police cannot stop the Malaysians especially Sarawakians from going to the street to expose the Barisan Nasional leaders corruption practices.
The latest was the protest organised by Sarawakian from all over Europe and Australia. This morning they staged a show of disgust outside the Central London headquarters of the wealthy propety company that is linked to Taib Mahmud, Ridgeford Properties.
To all Sarawakians that had no opportunity to join the crowds let's pray for the protest to spread to Sarawak.
For a show of support, we would like to share some of the photos taken during the demonstration. Some of the photos clearly shown that Peter John Jaban was among the crowds. Hope the photo will shut Joseph salang mouth who yesterday claimed that Free Radion Sarawak in which Peter John is one of it deejay was operating from Malacca.
Please see the photos below. If you like them please leave your comments.

 Hi Salang...Half of Peter John in Malacca and another half in London!..A Proof that Radion Free Sarawak is not operating from Malacca

Gordon Brown's sister-in-law Promises to Reveal Taib Mahmud Corruption Activities

Kuching
Thursday, 24th Feb 2011

Persons Behind Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak

In a flat above a restaurant in Covent Garden, an investigative reporter called Clare and a tribesman from Borneo covered in tattoos prepare to transmit their daily revolutionary radio broadcast deep into the Borneo jungle.

They make for an unlikely double act - she is a white, middle-aged Englishwoman, and he the proud grandson of a Dayak headhunter who broadcasts under the pseudonym Papa Orang Utan. Their aim is no less outlandish: to expose the alleged corruption of Taib Mahmud, chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo 6,500 miles from London, and bring an end to his 30-year rule.

"This is Radio Free Sarawak," begins Papa Orang Utan, donning his headphones to interview a village headman who has been forcibly removed from his land and who, quite remarkably, speaks to them on a mobile phone from the edge of the Borneo rainforest. Clare briefs Papa: "Make sure you ask if he knows that it's chief minister Taib who has stolen their land? And get who he'll be voting for!"

Until now the identity of the "pirates" behind Radio Free Sarawak has been a closely guarded secret - and for good reason. Scandal-plagued Taib, 74, is one of the world's most ruthless and wealthiest men - richer allegedly than the Sultan of Brunei, whose independent country lies alongside - and locals who oppose him can feel the full force of his retribution.

But today is a watershed: the duo have bravely decided to out themselves ahead of the upcoming Sarawak elections, expected in April. Indeed, the Evening Standard can reveal that the mystery Englishwoman who set up Radio Free Sarawak four months ago and who brought out the tattooed tribesman - real name Peter John Jaban - to front her broadcasts is in fact Clare Rewcastle Brown, sister-in-law of former prime minister Gordon Brown.

The last time she was in the public eye was in May 2009 when she published a letter defending the then prime minister's cleaning arrangements in the wake of the expenses scandal. Her piece, "The true story of Gordon Brown, the cleaner and my husband", laid out their "very ordinary shared cleaning arrangements" and explained why The Telegraph's front page "scoop" was groundless.

"My poor husband Andrew," she recalls, "was the face on the front page on the first day of the expenses scandal, which was pretty damn unfair given that Gordon's arrangement with the cleaner was later judged wholly legitimate. The reporters arrived on our doorstep thinking they'd 'got Gordon' but they hadn't done their due diligence and when we presented them with the truth, they didn't want to hear it."

Today she sees less of her husband's older brother, "Gordon and Sarah being mainly up in Scotland", but they are "a close-knit family" and "Gordon is hugely supportive," she says.

Rewcastle Brown, 51, born in Sarawak to British parents in the days before the former British colony was handed over to Malaysia, lived in the region until the age of eight, and she is the author of the hard-hitting Sarawak Report, a hitherto anonymous blog that gets 18,000 hits a day.

"English is still the unifying language in Sarawak and I use my blog and broadcasts to expose the outrageous deforestation which has seen 95 per cent of Sarawak's rainforest cut down and replaced by logging and palm oil plantations which have enriched Taib and his family," she says. "What's more, my investigations indicate some of the Taib family money is right here in London and includes a lucrative property portfolio in the heart of our capital."

Her work, she adds, is also about "giving the 2.5 million oppressed people of Sarawak a choice".

"The leader of the opposition party, a charismatic human rights lawyer called Baru Bian, inspires hope of real change in the upcoming election, but scandalously only one-third of the electorate are registered to vote and the corrupt Malaysian government turn a blind eye because Taib always delivers them Sarawak, their richest state."

Borneo: Clare as a child in the former British colony

She says their decision to go public was prompted by death threats posted to the Sarawak Report website and by the mysterious fatality of her chief whistleblower in America. "Before Christmas, Taib's disaffected US aide Ross Boyert was found dead in a Los Angeles hotel room with a plastic bag around his head. The inquest is still pending but there was a sense that Peter and I could be in danger. Rather than hide, we've decided to come out fighting."

She kicks off her leather boots and laughs. "The irony is that Taib and his people think we're a huge operation but there are just five of us with a couple of laptops and a mixer. Advances in MP3 technology mean that these days shortwave radio is cheap and easy to do. We've been so effective that Taib's people believe we're funded by George Soros, whose foundation funds Radio Free Burma."

Her outfit - started in October from the dining room of her loft in Victoria where she lives "in shabby dilapidation" with Andrew and their two teenage children - costs less than £10,000 a month, she says. Initially she funded it herself but she's since roped in some "better-off friends" who help out "anonymously". "Not Gordon," she hastens to add. "His support is strictly moral!"

Her passionate dedication to a cause 99 per cent of Londoners have never heard of sometimes causes strains, she admits, with friends and family. "But I honestly believe that Taib is probably one of the worst environmental criminals on the planet and that he has taken huge amounts from the country of my birth."

She smiles. "He never saw me coming. When he set up his property companies in 1982, he could never have imagined that some mad woman sitting in her kitchen in London would unravel his property empire simply by scrutinising company reports online."

As an investigative journalist who started with the BBC World Service in 1983, she is better equipped than most to uncover the wealth of the Mahmud family.

"My investigations have indicated that Taib and his family have a property empire in Canada, the US and the UK. Funds have been generated by Taib selling off rainforests with some of the money going through the British Virgin Islands."

The Evening Standard put these allegations to those who are behind the companies and they were denied.

Rewcastle Brown's passion for the rainforests of Sarawak was kindled as a child when she accompanied her mother, Karis, a midwife, into the jungle. Back then, Sarawak had the most biodiverse rainforest in the world with 3,000 species of trees, 15,000 plants, 420 birds and 221 mammals.

"My mother would drag me to remote clinics to show the indigenous Dayaks what a healthy baby should look like," she recalls.

"Everyone in those villages sleeps in one long-house and my mother frequently saved the lives of their sick babies. As a kid, my first friends were the local children and we used to climb trees and run barefoot, dodging the odd scorpion."

The family came to the UK when Rewcastle Brown was eight and she attended a private boarding school and later finished her masters in international relations at the LSE. It would be 38 years before she returned to Sarawak on a media trip where the degradation of the rainforest - so evident from the air - shocked her to the core.

In 2008 she went back to report on a by-election and secretly film companies clearing rainforest for oil palm. That was when she "fell into a peat bog and nearly died", and it was also when she met Jaban, 46, an election monitor fired from Taib's state-controlled radio for allowing callers to criticise the chief minister.

Last year she invited Jaban to become the voice of Radio Free Sarawak in London. It was a drastic step because it meant that while Taib stays in power, Jaban can never go back.

"I miss my four children, I miss my home," he says, tears streaming. He looks vulnerable, like a fish out of water, but he suddenly straightens. "I am prepared to die for this cause," he says. "In the days of my grandfather, you had to bring a decent clutch of heads as a sign of your masculinity when you got married. Today things have changed but you still have to be a man."

What are their chances of success? Rewcastle Brown ponders for a moment. "People say our man hasn't got a prayer in the election and that Taib will intimidate voters as he always does but I think our reports are having a huge effect and that there's a groundswell for change."

She smiles thinly. "You've got to take heart from what is happening in the Middle East to rulers who seemed equally immovable until just a few weeks ago."

Read More Here

Sarawak Report Reveals Another Land Grab by Taib Mahmud

Kuching
Sunday, 5th December 2010

Sarawak Report has been piecing together documentation that enables us to prove for the first time that the Chief Minister has conducted land thefts on a massive scale from the people of Sarawak. Using a number of sources, many of which Taib has shamefully attempted to keep secret, we are now unravelling detailed information showing the full extent of his seizures of Native Customary Rights Lands for himself and his family and also the extraordinary profits he has made at the expense of his people.

The corruption has been so extensive and the affects have been so devastating to so many Dayak communities and to the environment of Sarawak, that we are unable to cover this issue in just one article. Instead we will be examining our evidence over coming weeks and bringing you the results in a series of reports, which will look at the impact of Taib’s destructive greed on communities the length and breadth of the state.

Clear pattern emerges under ‘Thief’ Minister

Yet, already we can point to a clear pattern of activity or ’modus operandi’, through which Taib has abused his power by helping himself and his family to Dayak lands. In his joint role as Resources and Planning Minister the Chief Minister pushes a policy of ’alienating’ Native Customary Rights (NCR)Lands in the name of ’development’, a practice which was recently ruled illegal by the Federal High Court.

However, he has always worked hard to keep the private benefactors of this public policy hidden! The identity ofthe companies originally handed parcels of Dayak land by the state authorities and also the sums they have been charged ought to be public information, but they have always been treated as a top state secret, marked confidential in the Land Registry!

Sarawak Report can now confirm the perhaps unsurprising truth that very many of these companies directly belong to Taib’s family, or indeed himself, or to people he owes political or business favours . Our evidence also details how the standard practice is for the Chief Minister to hand over great parcels of land to companies owned by his siblings for rock bottom prices (or nothing at all) who in turn sell on these companies as quickly as possible (usually in a matter of days) to a crony business partner for a massive profit.

The Taib family member then often cements the deal by taking up shares or directorships in the new parent company (often under a proxy or hidden identity) so that they can continue to enjoy the profits of developing the land, but in a less obvious capacity. This ‘development’ almost invariably consists of stripping the area of its valuable timber and then planting palm oil plantations, leaving the destitute Dayakcommunities with nothing but very low paid jobs and usually laughable levels of compensation.

One shocking case in point

Sarawak Report has established that this scandalous activity has taken place in one of the most controversial current land grabs being sponsored by the State of Sarawak. The very poor Melanau population of Pulau Bruit near Sibu are one of the many communities to have suffered from this form of ‘development’, even though they are from the Chief Minister’s own race. The island till recently was a precious remaining area of fast disappearing lowland mangrove forest with a National Park of protected land. In 2004 the Chief Minister saw fit to ‘develop’ the area for yet more palm plantations, despite the growing international outcry over the destruction of Sarawak by palm plantations.

Therefore in May 2004 10,000 hectares of the island was handed to a company Eastern Eden Sdn Bhd and a further 5,000 to a company Poh Zhen. Of course the natives knew nothing of such decisions over their land until the palm plantation company came and started stripping the area of its pristine mangrove forests the following year and planting oil palm in its place. The company offered the locals just RM120 ringgit per hectare for their land - a total of just over a million ringgit to be shared by the entire community for all their native lands.

Encik Bahrum, one of the headmen, explains how he learnt about the development when he went to the jungle one day for forage for fish and food. A short way in he discovered that a vast area had been flattened. Bahrum, whose people have always lived in the area, said that the plantation company at first promised the locals that they were stripping the area to grow padi fields for the population, but in fact their whole region has been covered in oil palm. NGOs have told Sarawak Report that protesters have complained of harassment and arrest and many have ended taking the compensation feeling they have no choice.

Suffering of the people

Bahrum says that his people are now desperately short of food, because the forest and fish have gone. They are also suffering polluted waters as a result of pesticides andfertilisers on the plantation. Few have received jobs. The ‘development’ is now spreading across the island and extending into Iban territories affecting 8 communities at Sungai Lengan. The NGO Sadia has alerted the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil that the logging also appears to be encroaching illegally into the National Park area on the island. The Ibans say that already their health and food supplies have been affected by the pollution of their waters by chemicals and that fish are dying and children are falling sick. No compensation has been offered to the Ibans.

Sadia and the law firm belonging to PKR opposition leader Baru Bian are now supporting the natives in a court case to protect their remaining lands and sue for proper compensation. But there will be little surprise that the community say they have had no such support from their local representative to the Federal Parliament Norah Binti Abdul Rahman. She also the Chief Executive of the Tanjun Manis ‘development’ project that is driving the destruction of the entire area and she happens to be the niece of Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud.

Norah and Taibtreated themselves in the summer to a state-funded visit to Oxford University in the UK (along with two plane loads of publicly funded officials) in order to promote their business projects in the region at notorious event hosted by the University’s Said Business School. Norah is seeking international funding for further logging and devastation in order to develop a ‘Halal food Hub’ in Malaysia’s Christian state.

Even less surprising has been Nora’s sudden recent announcement that a large sum of money is about to be spent on an infrastructure programme to bring roads, electricity and water to the people who have till now been totally neglected in the ‘development’ of their region and who have suffered the loss of their forest lands and fishing grounds. She is of course now looking for their support in the upcoming election, but whether the promises will be remembered after the election is over is another matter. Local people are advised to ignore the 60 ringgit bribes she will also offer and to continue to ignore her even if she ups the bribe money! It is their right to receive Norah’s bribe money and to vote for another party entirely.

We expose who really profits

This is because perhaps the most shocking aspect of this story is the part that has until now been kept most hidden. Our investigations have revealed just how much money Norah’s family has taken from the natives of Pulau Bruit. When the locals had sought the owners of the palm plantations who had been handed their land by Taib’s decision as Chief Minister and Planning and Resources Minister they learnt that the companies, Eastern Eden and Poh Zhen, belonged to Jaya Tiasa a subsidiary company of the vast timber company Ribunan Hijau, run by a key crony of the Chief Minister. Therefore, their representatives have been making their protests to this company.

However, Sarawak Report can now reveal that the original owners of these companies were Taib’s own brothers Arip and Ali Mahmud. They received the land grants from the government on 19th May 2004 paying RM 6 million for Eastern Eden plot of 10,000 hectares and RM 3 million for the Poh Zhen plot of 5,000 hectares. However, in just 12 days on 31st May they had sold on the companies to their crony tycoon Ribunan Hijau/Jaya Tiasa chief Tiong Choong for RM 33 million and RM 16 million! This represents a RM 40 million clean profit for the Taib family in a matter of 12 days!

Further, true to the pattern we have identified, the Aripfamily have continued to enjoy profitable ties with the company they sold out to. Sarawak Report has identified a large chunk of Jaya Tiasa shares continue to belong to the Arip family (he died in 2005). These shares were clearly handed to the family as an added ‘sweetner’ for the deal. This means that the Mahmud family continues to reap big profits from the palm oil plantations and the timber extraction from the lands that were stolen from the local communities on top of the fat profit they made from selling on land that Taib had handed to them well below market price.

More

Sarawak Report will be following the fortunes of the impoverished islanders of Palau Bruit as they campaign to save the little remaining area of their lands and to receive compensation. However, their tragic case is just one of hundreds of land grabs by the Chief Minister and his family across the State. We will be unveiling more about these outrages and the effect on the people of Sarawak in later reports.

This article is taken from Sarawak Report and republish in Bukittunggal for the benefit of all Sarawakian

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