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The decision last week by Malaysian authorities to charge B. Nantha Kumar, a widely-respected reporter with the Kuala Lumpur-based news portal Malaysiakini, with taking a bribe to back away from a probe of immigration fraud, has awakened new concerns about integrity, not so much on Kumar’s part, but the government itself.
The case has raised new concerns both locally and internationally about press freedom in Malaysia, which has fallen precipitously in world press freedom rankings, with Reporters Without Borders last year denouncing what it called arbitrary blocking by the Communications and Multimedia Commission of political news websites critical of the government, urging an end to such acts of censorship and stating that independent journalists and media remain regular targets of authorities.
In fact, critics say, what appears to be a clumsy attempt to set up Kumar appears more likely to sully the reputations of the immigration department and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, neither of which have much reputation to defend. Kumar is free on bail but must return to court in April. The suspects who offered him the “bribe” were never arrested.
“He got fixed up for trying to mess with the big boys,” said a Kuala Lumpur-based political analyst. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
One of the big boys appears to have been a former immigration official that Kumar didn’t name for fear of a libel suit. When the attempt to frame him occurred, Kumar had already written two stories about corruption by syndicates that manage the entry of foreign nationals through Kuala Lumpur International Airport, alleging that a retired senior official and a foreign national were running a criminal operation out of the airport.
Both Malaysiakini Managing Editor Ng Ling Fong and Executive Editor RK Anand say the award-winning news portal, which has withstood repeated harassment by authorities, stands behind the 42-year-old Kumar’s reporting, although they push for a thorough investigation of the matter. It is paying his legal fees. Anand declined to talk on the record about the affair.
Kumar was in regular contact with top immigration officials, he said in a description of the matter printed in Malaysiakini, giving them the evidence he had amassed, including that the suspects were trying to bribe him. MACC agents burst into a room where he was meeting with two of the suspects, one of whom had just thrust an envelope containing money into his hands, and arrested him.
“Why would someone ask for a bribe after publishing his findings? Why would someone be given a bribe after he revealed the names of those involved?” asked a senior source in Kuala Lumpur who asked not to be named. “Why is the MACC now rushing to pillory him when it has done nothing with the names of the ringleaders for months? I think Nantha in his determination to blow the whistle on the whole case, got careless and walked into their trap. Clearly, the powers that be want to discredit him and draw attention away from his revelations of high-level corruption in immigration, one of the most corrupt agencies in Malaysia.”
Indeed, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, himself no angel, once estimated that more than half of the 1,500 immigration officers working in the terminals at Kuala Lumpur International Airport had participated in a range of corrupt practices, including fraudulent issuance of visas, tampering with Immigration Department data, and collusion with human-trafficking agents.
Another minister, Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Tiong King Sing, also alleged “a culture of corruption among a number of (immigration) officers as well as chronic abuse of power at the country’s major gateway,” and called on the MACC to “enter KLIA in full force to probe what is actually happening in this major entry point,” according to a story in the New Straits Times.
In Nantha’s telling, printed in Malaysiakini on March 7, his first story appeared on February 19, describing a KLIA-based syndicate involved in falsifying exit and entry stamps for foreign workers without their without their presence. He contacted the two for their comments. One denied involvement, while the other didn’t respond.
The second story, he wrote, spurred a call from Home Ministry official and a state immigration director, who reached out for further information, although police authorities failed to take action.
In his telling, he agreed to work closely with immigration officials to provide evidence of wrongdoing. He was later contacted by one of the Pakistanis mentioned in his stories, who asked for a meeting at a Kuala Lumpur restaurant registered under the name of a former high-ranking immigration officer, whereupon he was taken to a private room and offered RM50,000 (US$11,248), with RM20,000 to stop his reporting. He says he refused and reported the attempt to the state immigration director.
On February 27, the same Pakistani agent mentioned in the article contacted him again, “asking to settle the matter.” A day later, after informing a state immigration official, whom he didn’t name, he arranged a meeting at the Concorde Hotel in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Shah Alam, telling the official he would hand over any evidence gathered, although crucially, he said, he didn’t tell his editors about the final meeting, when he was arrested. The official, Kumar said, assured him he would back him up.
In the meeting, the Pakistani handed Kumar an envelope, “which I believed contained money, as a bribe. Surprised, I took it either way as evidence to be handed to the state immigration director.”
Within seconds, he said, more than a dozen officers from the Malaysian Anticorruption Commission barged into the open cafe located in the hotel where he was meeting – surrounded by CCTV cameras – and confronted him. He was subsequently arrested and pleaded not guilty on March 14 to allegedly receiving a RM20,000 bribe as inducement to not do further news reports on migrant syndicates.
On March 1, MACC chief Azam Baki denied to local media that Kumar had been arrested over his reporting, saying the reporter had been detained for soliciting and receiving bribes and charged for receiving a “payoff” bribe of RM20,000, negotiated down from RM100,000 in exchange for ‘not publishing’ two articles surrounding the smuggling operation.
“From the outset,” Kumar wrote, “I want to make it absolutely clear that I did not solicit a bribe. For the record, I neither requested ‘RM100,000 nor negotiated the amount to settle for ‘RM20,000.’”
A cluster of national and international press protection and rights organizations have come to Kumar’s defense including the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, Asian Parliamentarians For Human Rights, The National Union of Journalists Peninsular Malaysia and others, calling for a free and impartial probe of the allegations.
“Corruption and human trafficking are crimes in Malaysia; reporting on these offenses is not,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Malaysian authorities must ensure B. Nantha Kumar can continue to report safely and that the law is not misused to curtail investigative reporting or to intimidate the media. Journalists must be free to uncover wrongdoing.”
Beh warned in a statement that the arrest could set a dangerous precedent for media repression in Malaysia. “This case risks being perceived as an attempt to stifle investigative journalism. The authorities must ensure that law enforcement is not weaponized to harass journalists. A free and independent press is essential to any democracy, and Malaysia must uphold its commitments to media freedom.”
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