PAS information chief Nasrudin Hasan has claimed that the Bank Islam account used to purportedly transfer RM1.4 million to Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown is fake.
"Some friends checked the account number which is being shared (on social media) by trying to transfer RM5 and RM1, and the account doesn't exist," he said on Facebook.
Nasrudin also urged others to attempt transferring funds to PAS' authentic Bank Islam account.
His post included the hashtag "tolakakaunpalsu" (reject fake accounts).
Earlier today, Rewcastle-Brown claimed that PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang paid her RM1.4 million to settle his defamation suit against her.
She said that while she had agreed to Hadi’s condition that the payment is kept confidential by both parties, PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan’s insistence that no such payment has been made was a breach of the agreement.
"Hadi should not have been discussing details of the settlement payment with a member of PAS at all.
"Takiyuddin’s representations on Hadi’s behalf is a flagrant and repudiatory breach of the confidentiality agreement, which is particularly egregious as it is untrue.
"Sarawak Report therefore is entitled to consider itself released from confidentiality also, in order to be able to tell the truth to the Malaysian people who are being misled,” she said.
Rewcastle-Brown uploaded several documents on the Sarawak Report website, including one that showed the account number that was purportedly used to transfer the money.
She added that the cheque for RM1.4 million was placed in escrow with Sarawak Report’s Malaysian lawyer Americk Sidhu.
Social media users have also disputed the account number, as it only has 10 digits compared to the 14 digits of a regular Bank Islam account number.
Malaysiakini's attempt to transfer money into the account mentioned in Sarawak Report's website was returned with an error message, which read, “Please enter valid account number length”.
However, PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli later said that the 10 digits were part of a 14-digit account number, which he had discovered after making comparisons
The former lawmaker also claimed that he successfully transferred RM10 to the account.
Prior to this, Americk dismissed Nasrudin's claim, stating that the transfer has already been cleared into his client’s bank account.
As such, he added, either the cheque was genuine or the clearing bank made a "huge mistake".
