Duo at odds, Before putting pic in video Ramesh scrolled through photos and claimed Lester pointed to the picture of the station mana­ger

Ramesh Rao

Lester and Ramesh at odds over use of wrong picture

 

PETALING JAYA: Former Sarawak Tribune editor Lester Melanyi and Ramesh Rao Krishnan Naidu are giving excuses for using the wrong picture of a man they have accused of falsifying information on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) for the Sarawak Report.

This comes after a picture of a British railway station manager appeared in the second part of Les­ter’s video confession as one James Steward Stephen who has been alleged to have fa­bricated e-mails and agreements which Sarawak Report bases its articles on.

Ramesh, who is Pertubuhan Minda dan Sosial Prihatin president, who has claimed responsibility for the videos, admitted to the mistake, but said that the picture was put in based on Lester’s instructions.

Ramesh claimed that he was “rushing” during the video production and pushed the blame to his source.

“I’d like to emphasise that whatever is said in the video is all what Lester is telling us. Nothing more, nothing less.

“I don’t know about the picture because I’ve never seen him before. Whatever he says I have to accept. Maybe he could be wrong,” Ramesh said.

He explained that he had Google to search for pictures of this James Stephen, using his name, UK and IT expert as keywords.

Ramesh scrolled through some photos and claimed Lester pointed to the picture of the station mana­ger.

However, this contradicts Lester’s claim that he did not know who included the picture in the video.

“Maybe his eyes were not right or maybe we mistakenly saw. We don’t know.

“But anyway James Stephen exists,” he claimed.

Ramesh handed printouts of a supposed e-mail conversation between Lester and the web designer on July 3, but did not give further evidence to support his claims.

Despite the blunder, Ramesh said he still trusted Lester’s credibility and would make an appearance with him next week, where they would air the third part of the video confession.

The duo have been under the spotlight following their exposé, with detractors from the Opposition and Sarawak Report claiming that Lester was a bankrupt and only worked on a semi-voluntary basis with Radio Free Sarawak rather than Sarawak Report.

The video series quote Lester as claiming that he had worked for the whistleblower site and that members of the Opposition were appa­rently in cahoots with it to fabricate information to discredit 1MDB and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Wrong James Stephen Picture Used In Video