PETALING JAYA: Leaked emails said to be doctored detailing business dealings between 1Malaysia Development Berhad and PetroSaudi International (PSI) will not be used by The Edge Malaysia in its news reports anymore.
The media group said while it believed that the published emails were not the cause of 1MDB's financial struggles, it would adhere to the warning issued by Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
"We will defer to the Home Minister and will not refer to the emails again in any of our reports until the air is cleared about them," the media group said in a statement on a news portal.
Following the arrest for former PSI IT executive Xavier Justo in Thailand on Monday, Zahid said The Edge and its owner Tong Kooi Ong should be held responsible for publishing false information.
Justo is accused of relaying incorrect information to The Sarawak Report over 1MDB's business dealings with PSI, as some of the documents published by the blog in its expose showed signs of being tampered with after being stolen from PSI's databases.
The Sarawak Report expose was subsequently picked up by other news outlets.
The Edge has defended its use of the documents, insisting that due diligence was carried out in reporting the important public issue of 1MDB.
"Throughout these past five months, no one has challenged the authenticity of the emails and we have offered our help to all the authorities looking into the problems at 1MDB, including passing them what we have," it said.
The media company added that it was prepared to assist the authorities in verifying the authenticity of the information it had previously published.
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