FOCUS / THE STRAWMAN'S NOOSE

FOCUS THIS TIME TRAINS OUR EYES ONTO THE FACTUALLY TACITURN MR LUKAS STRAUMANN OF BRUNO MANSER FONDS FAME.

– - –

1.
2. RELATED: LETTER FROM MISHCON DE REYA (EXCERPTED)
3. RELATED: ACTUAL LETTER TO THE BBC

– - –

MORE ROPE TO HANG LUKAS STRAUMANN?
REPORTED BY BLOGTAKES

It appears that there will be more rope to hang Bruno Manser Fund’s Dr Lukas Straumann for the defamatory statements made in recent weeks against Sarawak governor Tun Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud. 

Bruno Manser Fund and Sarawak Report have been challenging Taib to sue them, and claiming that a lack of a lawsuit so far “proves” their case. Which sort of makes sense, provided you don’t think very hard.

They seem to calculate that a Governor, particularly one as proud of his shiny new job as Taib, won’t sue. But more to the point, they would get huge publicity and financial support – notably amongst wealthy activists in Europe – if they could run around claiming that they themselves were under attack.

What they hardly ever point out is that he already HAS sued and won [against Malaysiakini], specifically on the main issue that they hang their hats on: Their claim that Taib set up his brother to control and demand kickbacks from log exports was disproved.

This is probably the biggest single allegation made by Sarawak Report, BMF and Global Witness that has already been tested in court and thrown out. Yet they continue to make it, almost always without telling their readers that it has been disproved.


The Malaysiakini apology is there, and it looks as if Malaysiakini has just woken up to how legally exposed they are by their aggressive stance in repeating the foreigners assertions. If you yourself retract an attack, assert it wasn’t true, and apologise, you are on very weak ground.

And it is emerging that time is on Taib’s side. If an Australian university chancellor writes that he has read, believed, and acted upon the activists’ output, to the detriment of Taib, it cranks up the pressure on the authors. When the authors publicise this, it seems like a hit, but makes the pressure greater still. And when the activists hide from the public information that balances or defeats their claims, they give the Taib camp the opportunity to point this out.

So what game is Taib’s lawyers playing? At a casual breakfast chat with lawyers in Kuala Lumpur, BlogTakes was made to understand why it might be that the London law firm has yet to institute the suit against the Swiss NGO activist. It looks like they are playing smart in the street fight.

“They will want to give Straumann more rope to hang himself,” said a prominent lawyer specialising in litigation cases who is following reports published in Internet news portals. “When one suggests ‘Mafia’, one is really taking ‘defamatory’ to the sky.”

But the strategy seems to be two-pronged. We are beginning to realise that Straumann and Rewcastle write, and maintain, allegations that they know are disproved. It is now clear that allegations energetically channeled by them from Taib’s son’s divorce court case were the work of a convicted, professional forger. Even Rewcastle has written to try to distance herself from the forger, while the divorce legal team in question limps gamely on.

“The more energy that Straumann and Rewcastle and others put into the attack, the easier it is to show the malice involved,” says the legal eagle.

“Malice”, to these lawyers, is a technical term. It refers – in defamation law – to people putting out information that is not only false and damaging, but which the author KNOWS to be false and damaging. It has a dramatic impact on damages in court, but behind the scenes, it also destroys credibility.

Editors eventually shy away from quoting from sources who can be shown to be maliciously wrong. Criticising forestry policy is easy, and however controversial, there are always many points of view. By attacking the family, Rewcastle and the BMF have, in the short term, made a huge splash, but they can be discredited by their obsession with Taib.

The Swiss-based rainforest NGO group had said a London law firm had been commissioned by the controversial Taib to stop a BBC interview on Lukas Straumann’s book, “Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia”, which exposed the governor and former chief minister’s vast wealth allegedly derived from illegal logging.

The key issue is in the detail: Allegations hurled by Straumann included that the former chief minister’s family received a US$5 million (RM18 million) mansion for US$1 (RM3.61) from a tycoon’s family in 1991.

The NGO’s Straumann had questioned the transaction in his book and claimed the transaction was done between the two families at US$1.

Moreover, he subsequently claimed that Taib’s lawyers have “admitted a deal”. What he didn’t explain was that the “admission” was made in a letter to him, while definitively dismantling his claim of corruption.

Other commentators are beginning to expose that Straumann and Rewcastle play games with “letters” they have received. The activists told us that they had used their powerful political connections to instigate investigations in Switzerland into Taib’s “secret” finances. They completely forgot to tell us that the investigations – two of them – were publicly closed down by the Swiss prosecutors, who found the allegations to be totally false.

The activists told us that they had written to the FBI complaining that the FBI was complicit in corruption because the law enforcement body rents space in the US from a company controlled by Taib’s offspring. How is that investigation going?

Well, the FBI is still renting there, in spite of an open letter. Why? Probably because BMF centred on the claim that Taib’s brother “controls timber exports from Sarawak”, which is itself a wild exaggeration of the false claim that was already dismissed in court. And presumably the FBI are smart enough to work that one out from Google.

Sarawak governor Abdul Taib Mahmud’s lawyers have however rebutted the wild claim.

After controversial reports had surfaced, MalaysiaKini on January 20 subsequently reported an interesting piece of discovery. Presumably it had sighted the London legal letter, it posted what had not been declared in the open by Straumann,
The British law firm acting for Taib said the transaction of the mansion between Samling founder Yaw Teck Seng’s family to a member of Taib’s family was done at “full market value”.

The 9,000 square feet mansion is located in Seattle, US.

In a letter to Bruno Manser Fund executive director Lukas Straumann, Taib’s legal team said the US$1 transaction was done internally in the Yaw family as it placed the property under the family owned WA Bolyston Inc.

“The vendor and acquirer – as evidenced by the public available paperwork – were the Yaw family.

“This transaction was internal, to and perfectly normal practice for owners of a large property.

“Neither Abdul Taib Mahmud nor any of his family were party to that process, or had any interest in the property or company at that time,” read the letter disclosed by BMF.

It was only later that the company, together with the property under it, was transacted to Taib’s family at “full market value”, said Taib’s legal team.

“Subsequently, WA Boylston Inc was then sold on, in a legal transaction at a full market value, to a company controlled by members of Abdul Taib Mahmud’s family,” read the letter.

It is obvious from a reading of this that Malaysiakini is seeing a lot more of that letter than Straumann has shown the world, and are quoting it carefully and in a balanced way.

Described as MalaysiaKini has done, it completely eliminates the spin Straumann put on his selective quoting from the same letter. “There was more in the letter from the London law firm to the NGO activist which had not been explained in totality for audiences to appreciate,” added another lawyer in the breakfast chat.

“Lukas Straumann appears to have been selective in his extracts of the legal letter and to paint an ugly picture far from the truth. I smell mala fide in the air,” added another lawyer at the table.

For the uninitiated, ‘mala fide’ is deemed the fraudulent deception of another person; the intentional or malicious refusal to perform some duty or contractual obligation.

“Straumann wants to sell his book quick before it is completely debunked,” said another.

It was also reported by MalaysiaKini that the British law firm Mishcon de Reya allegedly threatened legal action against the BBC were it to broadcast an interview conducted with Straumann on timber corruption in Sarawak.

“During an interview with the BBC’s World Service, author and BMF executive director Straumann was shown a ‘strictly private and confidential,’ letter by Mishcon to the BBC.

“Mishcon’s claim was not backed by evidence on why the interview with Straumann should not be broadcast, apart from that Money Logging allegedly was ‘full of errors’,” said BMF in a statement.

BlogTakes believes that the BBC which covers wars and world leaders are not likely to feel threatened by a legal letter. Did Mishcon, a very experienced law firm really try to block the broadcast of an interview?

“They wouldn’t do that”, said the lawyer over his coffee “because it wouldn’t work for five seconds”. And yet the BBC seems to have binned the interview Straumann claims they recorded.

So what gives, apart from added length to a rope awaiting Lukas Straumann?

('More rope to hang Lukas Straumann?' - BlogTakes, January 26, 2015)

– - –

1. MORE ROPE TO HANG LUKAS STRAUMANN?
2.
3. RELATED: ACTUAL LETTER TO THE BBC

– - –

RELATED: LETTER FROM MISHCON DE REYA (EXCERPTED)
The following is excerpted from Mishcon de Reya's letter to Lukas Straumann, dated January 15, 2015

FACTUAL REBUTTALS OF CERTAIN ALLEGATIONS MADE IN YOUR BOOK, AS PREVIOUSLY PROVIDED:

1. Your Book states that Abdul Taib Mahmud awarded his brother, Onn Mahmud control over the privatised tropical timber export agency and that Onn Mahmud subsequently demanded kickbacks from Japanese shipping companies. 

This is untrue both substantively and on several points of detail. There is no such thing as a timber export license in Sarawak. Timber felling is controlled. Timber exports are not controlled. The only permit needed is certification of export duty paid. Therefore the allegation repeated in your Book, that Onn Mahmud had control over exports is nonsense. 

The falsehood of your statements regarding Onn Mahmud is compounded by your claim that Onn Mahmud demanded kickbacks from Japanese shipping companies. The facts on the matter, all available publicly, are that in 1981, Dewan Niaga (Sarawak) Sdn [sic.], then owned by the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation, entered into an agreement with a collection of Japanese shipping lines that already operated under the Nanyozai Freight Agreement. 

The company was subsequently privatised, at which point Onn Mahmud became a partial owner. The arrangement with the NFA was later alleged to be corrupt and was investigated by the Japanese authorities. The Japanese authorities accepted that the payments were legitimate, and our client consequently brought a claim for defamation, which was settled on very favourable terms with our client, and resulted in a total retraction and apology from Malaysiakini, the Malaysian news portal which had published the allegations. 

Notwithstanding the fact that Malaysiakini has publicly apologized for publishing the same false allegations regarding Onn Mahmud and Abdul Taib Mahmud, you have published them as fact, and make no mention at all of the court case or Malaysiakini’s apology, which is available on its website. 

2. Your Book states that a timber tycoon’s family, the Yaw family sold a property in Washington State to Abdul Taib Mahmud’s family for one dollar. Implicit in this allegation is that such a sale of a multi-million dollar property was a bribe. 

The Yaw family moved the property, 1117 Boylston Ave E in Seattle, into a SPV company, WA Boylston Inc, for a “quit claim” fee of one dollar. Quit claim transactions are normal within a portfolio of assets. The vendor and acquirer - as evidenced by the publicly available paperwork - were the Yaw family. This transaction was internal to, and perfectly normal practice for, owner of a large property. Neither Abdul Taib Mahmud nor his family were party to that process, or had any interest in the property or company at that time. Subsequently, WA Boylston Inc was then sold on, in a legal transaction at full market value, to a company controlled by members of Abdul Taib Mahmud’s family. The account in your Book corrupts a normal transaction into a totally fictitious bribe. 

3. Your Book deploys Mr Boyert as a credible witness. 

Mr Boyert was not a credible witness. He was a disgruntled former employee with serious mental health issues and a history of bringing fictitious claims against former employers. 

– - –
RELATED (1-3)
– - –

[1: EPISODES / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO – "3. Sources used for this report...this report draws specifically on the following sources:- Sarawak Report, a campaign website run by British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown.- Court depositions by former Taib family employees and business partners:- Ross J. Boyert: former Vice President of Taib family-owned Sakti International Corporation in California, US12- Ting Check Sii: former owner [sic.] of now Taib family-controlled Sanyan Sdn. Bhd in Malaysia.- Farok Majeed: former business associate of Onn Mahmud in Singapore and Australia." - Bruno Manser Fonds, 2014]

[1A: EPISODES / DRAMATIS PERSONÆ–WHO'S WHO OF CLARE BROWN – "Tanaka is in substance, Dato Ting [Check Sii]’s mouthpiece...I completely reject Tanaka’s contention on the Oral Agreements. There is simply no credible evidence to substantiate the existence of the oral agreements at all material times...I need only outline a few broad reasons here...Tanaka’s case was originally premised on the purported directors’ resolutions of 1993 and 1994, which I find to be fabricated." - Justice Edmund Leow of The High Court of Singapore for 'Suit No 783 of 2012', June 29, 2015]

~

[2: EPISODES / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO – "[I] will not retract a single word as the book has been “meticulously researched and is strictly fact-based.” - Lukas Straumann - Bruno Manser Fonds, November 3, 2014]

~

[3: VISUAL AIDS / EXHIBIT 3 – "Squeezed out - former partner Ting Check Sii is looking for the return of his investment." - Sarawak Report, January 27, 2015]

– - –

Mr Boyert worked for Sakti for many years before he resigned and pursued an ill-fated employment claim. It was subsequently revealed that Mr Boyert had attempted to benefit financially using a similar approach in a failed lawsuit he brought against another of his former employers which was decided in 1992. 

Your Book also seeks to intimate that our client had a hand in Mr Boyert’s death. This is again untrue: Mr Boyert was clearly suicidal and quite apparently delusional, paranoid and undergoing severe psychiatric issues. Clare Rewcastle, through whom you were introduced to Mr Boyert, interviewed him in a psychiatric hospital a few weeks before his death in 2010. His death was examined by the authorities in California and determined to be a case of suicide. 

As part of the claim that our client was instrumental in Mr Boyert’s death, your book additionally alleges that our client financially ruined Mr Boyert. This, also is untrue. 

Although he failed in his employment claim against them, the Taib family guessed at this parlous financial position and did not seek their legal fees from him. Mr Boyert was in fact bankrupted (for at least the second time in his life) by his own disastrous real estate investments, spiralling credit card bills and his lawyers’ fees. Examples of Mr Boyert’s employment after he left Sakti and his poor financial situation are all matters of public record which you have chosen to ignore. 

4. Your Book relies upon a depiction of relatives collected as a single body controlled by our client. 

This is untrue. Abdul Taib Mahmud is a wealthy man and comes from a large and prominent family. He does not control the actions of his very many relatives and the manner in which you have portrayed this in your book is an extreme distortion of reality.

It should be a matter of great embarrassment to you that you have chosen to publish select sections of our correspondence with Bergli Books but have never published any of the factual information that shows many of your allegations to be untrue.

('Letter to Lukas Straumann–JLL/EN/40232.1' - Mishcon de Reya, January 15, 2015)

– - –

1. MORE ROPE TO HANG LUKAS STRAUMANN?
2. RELATED: LETTER FROM MISHCON DE REYA (EXCERPTED)
3.
– - –

The following is a reproduction of Mishcon de Reya's letter to the BBC dated January 15, 2015

RELATED: THE ACTUAL LETTER TO THE BBC

LETTER FROM MISHCON DE REYA TO THE BBC

MISCHON DE REYA

SUMMIT HOUSE

12 RED LION SQUARE

LONDON WC1R 4QD

DX 37954 KINGSWAY

www.mischon.com

15 January 2015

Our Ref: JLL/EN/40232.I/

Your Ref:

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Ms S Streeter

British Broadcasting Corporation

BBC Television Centre

Wood Lane

London

W127RJ

BY E-MAIL (SUSANNAH.STREETER@BBC.CO.UK)

Dear Madam

Interview with Lukas Straumann and Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia, by Lukas Straumann (the "Book")

As you are aware, we act for Tun Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud ("Mr Abdul Taib"), the current Governor of Sarawak. We write further to your telephone call to this firm of today.

We understand that you intend to broadcast an interview with Mr Straumann tomorrow. We assume that the interview will be about or otherwise cover the subject matter of Mr Straumann's Book.

As you will doubtless be aware, our client's position is that Mr Straumann's Book contains numerous defamatory allegations about him that are both highly defamatory and entirely untrue.

We have engaged in correspondence with Mr Straumann's publishers about those allegations and explained, by way of example, some of the many factual errors in Mr Straumann's Book on behalf of our client. The factual errors described in correspondence render many of Mr Straumann's central allegations entirely untrue. Some of the most serious allegations made by Mr Straumann in his Book, for example, have already been tested in court and found to be untrue.

– - –
RELATED (1-3)
– - –

[1: EPISODES / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO – "[I] will not retract a single word as the book has been “meticulously researched and is strictly fact-based.” - Lukas Straumann - Bruno Manser Fonds, November 3, 2014]

~

~

[2: EPISODES / CLARE AND CULLEN–THE DO-SI-DO – "3. Sources used for this report...this report draws specifically on the following sources:- Sarawak Report, a campaign website run by British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown.- Court depositions by former Taib family employees and business partners:- Ross J. Boyert: former Vice President of Taib family-owned Sakti International Corporation in California, US12- Ting Check Sii: former owner [sic.] of now Taib family-controlled Sanyan Sdn. Bhd in Malaysia.- Farok Majeed: former business associate of Onn Mahmud in Singapore and Australia." - Bruno Manser Fonds, 2014]

~

[3: EPISODES / DRAMATIS PERSONÆ–WHO'S WHO OF CLARE BROWN – "Tanaka is in substance, Dato Ting [Check Sii]’s mouthpiece...I completely reject Tanaka’s contention on the Oral Agreements. There is simply no credible evidence to substantiate the existence of the oral agreements at all material times...I need only outline a few broad reasons here...Tanaka’s case was originally premised on the purported directors’ resolutions of 1993 and 1994, which I find to be fabricated." - Justice Edmund Leow of The High Court of Singapore for 'Suit No 783 of 2012', June 29, 2015]

– - –

We have not received responses that deal with the substantive factual issues raised on behalf of our client in correspondence.

Mr Straumann has published partial extracts from our correspondence with his publishers in order to make comment upon both this firm and its client. He has each time failed to publish the factual rebuttals provided. This is not surprising considering that they throw significant doubt on the allegations that he makes, both in his Book and elsewhere

The BBC is now on notice that the allegations that Mr Straumann makes in his Book are in large part defamatory of our client and are untrue. Should the BBC wish to publish any allegations about either our client or this firm, they should be put in writing to us first, providing a reasonable time to respond.

The BBC will obviously be held accountable under English law in the usual was for what it publishes.

All of this firm's and our client's rights are fully reserved.

Yours faithfully,

Mishcon de Reya

('Letter to the BBC–JLL/EN/40232.I/' - Mishcon de Reya, January 15, 2015)

– - –

The NINE QUESTIONS Blog will return with more facts.

– - –