The Edge Media Group, whose financial newspapers The Edge Financial Daily and The Edge Weekly were suspended by the Home Ministry for three months beginning today, has filed for a judicial review of the government directive.
The company has yet to be granted a hearing date on its claim, and its lawyers were unable to obtain a copy of its affidavit for public consumption until the case is heard in court.
“Given the urgency and public interest, we hope the Court will grant us a date very soon,” the comany said in a brief statement, as quoted by The Malay Mail Online.
The Home Ministry announced its decision to suspend The Edge‘s print editions for three months last Friday, following the financial newspaper’s extensive coverage of the scandals surrounding sovereign development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
The Edge‘s publisher Ho Kay Tat and its chairperson Tong Kooi Ong admitted on Friday that the paper had agreed to pay Swiss former PetroSaudi employee Xavier Andre Justo USD2 million for leaked documents purportedly exposing wrongdoing within 1MDB, but did not pay him.
They insist that while they misled Justo to receive the leaked information, they had not committed any wrongdoing.
The information thet obtained was presented in an article alleging that local billionaire Jho Low and two PetroSaudi bosses had laundered some USD1.83 billion (RM6.97 billion) from 1MDB into their personal coffers between 2009 and 2011.
Apart fromThe Edge, another website critical of 1MDB and its alleged misconduct, Sarawak Report, has had access to it within Malaysia blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, with local newsportals warned against reprinting any of its content under threat of federal legal action.
