The editor-in-chief of Sarawak Report , Clare Rewcastle-Brown, has denied being a stooge to former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

This followed allegations posted on the website Open Source Investigations (OSI) claiming that Rewcastle-Brown had close links with Anwar.

“I am a journalist and have sought access to Anwar and other politicians. I also campaign against corruption and human rights abuses in Malaysia, of which he has become a prominent victim…

“If you mean do I receive money from opposition sources in Malaysia, the answer is no,” Rewcastle-Brown told Malaysiakini in response to questions on the allegations.

She dismissed OSI as a front organisation and propaganda tool, using material from other websites to disguise its “invective” against her and several others.

“None of their invective is backed up by evidence because most of it isn’t true,” she said in an email.

Rewcastle-Brown said those behind the website appear to have access to email from a computer hack that took place around 2011, as well as WhatsApp messages from the Swiss national Xavier Justo ( photo ).

These materials, she said, had been cut-and-paste over the years to portray her in a nefarious light and were completely different from the actual conversations that took place.

In the OSI posting on Jan 5, the website claimed, using screenshots of two alleged email, that Rewcastle-Brown appeared to be acting as though she is a press officer for Anwar.

In an email dated Sep 5, 2012, Anwar referred to her as “my media adviser”, although apparently in jest, as this is followed immediately with “haha”.

The rest of the purported email were forwarded content, in which Rewcastle-Brown supposedly told a Daily Mail reporter in the United Kingdom that Anwar had contacted her to provide a statement on the visit of UK's Prince William and his wife Catherine Middleton.

In the second email dated Dec 12, 2012, Rewcastle-Brown purportedly asks whether she should publish an article, but Anwar asks her to withhold the article, which she complied.

Asked about the context of these two email, Rewcastle-Brown only provided an explanation for the second one.

She said the second email referred to a supposed political movement ran by the tycoon Sng Chee Hua in Sarawak.

“I had received information that there was stealing going on by his own candidates – they were pretending to round up new party members and taking money from Sng for each of these bogus names. Great story.

“At the time Sng was playing footsie with Pakatan Rakyat as well as BN as to who his 'Socialist Workers Party' would support in the election and I would have been sounding out Anwar on the story in that email contact.

“I don't think he replied and I ran the story soon after!” she said, providing a link to an article published on April 20, 2013.