How Najib smeared Mahathir using Western Journalists

In December, in his frequent outlet the South China Morning Post, Byrnes, describing himself as a ‘Kuala Lumpur based commentator’ lambasted Mahathir in an article, which reads like an election broadcast for Najib, claiming pointedly that under him the courts have “recovered their independence”

Sarawak Report has evidence that Najib’s communications chief Paul Stadlen hired Byrnes onto his team funded by the Prime Minister’s Office.

The articles emanating from Mr Byrne have continued to doggedly promote the beleaguered Najib.  In an article in the National, which was ‘bounced back’ into Malaysia via the Star he has promoted him as a foreign leader:

In another article entitled “Free Speech is fine, but who wants a vile rant” he defended Najib’s right to uphold the Sedition Act, praising Malaysia for being better than Vietnam:


“In Vietnam, dissident bloggers have been detained, jailed and beaten. In Malaysia, on the other hand, such critics thrive in the country’s online publications”.

PM’s Communications Department’s  new recruit Sholto Byrnes.

How Najib got Anwar into jail with help of paid western journalists

According to emails written by the crony businessman Jho Low, which we have already published, the PM, or more particularly Rosmah, wanted Anwar’s reputation to be destroyed.

Low and his contacts were put to work in the Middle East to spread the word that Anwar was a busted flush in Malaysia and a dangerous Muslim radical to boot.

Meanwhile, a team of Texan bloggers, lead by a vocal right-wing, anti-Palestinian opinion writer called Josh Trevino, was hired by FBC to do the same job in the United States.

Trevino's article to smear Anwar's reputation.

FBC was paid RM84 million out of the Prime Minister’s office budget to perform this task while boosting Najib on the world media.

For an extra USD$5 million a year FBC also agreed to take on a related contract on behalf of Taib Mahmud to perform a parallel hatchet job on Sarawak Report.

As part of a wider campaign of black ops and smear tactics across the internet, Trevino set up a blog called New Ledger, which purported to be servicing right wingers in America interested in world affairs.

But, in fact the content consisted of attacks on Anwar and later Sarawak Report, which were then ‘bounced back’ into Malaysia, using Bernama and other government agencies, as if they were reflecting mainstream US opinion.

FBC media also provided documentaries and news items for peppercorn rates to certain BBC TV outlets and to CNBC, which were actually PR  to promote their real clients, Najib Razak and Taib Mahmud.

When Sarawak Report exposed the scam, which involved breaking broadcast laws, FBC’s programmes were taken off air by the two broadcasters and the PR/Production company was shut down.

New Ledger was also scrapped and later Josh Trevino was sacked by the Guardian newspaper for his history of submitting so-called “opinion pieces” to theirs and other news organisations, which were in fact paid for PR, commissioned by Najib.



Najib communications team head, Stadlen’s has a newest recruit to the Prime Ministerial communications team, Sholto Byrnes.

Byrnes’ attacks have been largely carried in two news outlets, before being picked up in Malaysia blogs.  These are The National, which is based in Abu Dhabi and the South China Morning Post.

An article he wrote in the South China Morning Post on the day that Anwar was jailed for a second time on sodomy charges provoked particular anger in many circles, because it repeated an untruth that had been promoted by Paul Stadlen’s own speedy press release released just moments after Anwar’s conviction, alleging that his accuser had been subjected to a brutal attack.


Speaking to the television outlet Al Jazeerah the same day, Byrnes used almost identical language to Stadlen’s own much criticised accusation that Anwar had been found guilty of forcing himself on a young aide.