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PETALING JAYA: The news that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is seeking public relations (PR) practitioner Paul Stadlen, a UK national, may have sparked a few memories.
The MACC on Thursday issued a statement saying it was looking for him as a witness in its 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) investigations.
For many, the question would be: who is he?
The 39-year-old first came to prominence in 2015, after bloggers and news portals, including Sarawak Report, detailed his lavish lifestyle.
Such reports were accompanied by pictures of him partying, usually surrounded by a bevy of beauties – often scantily-clad.
However, his history with the Malaysian government goes back as far back as 2009, when global PR firm Apco Worldwide won a government contract here.
The portal PublicAffairsAsia then reported that Stadlen was heading to Malaysia to become managing director of the new office in Kuala Lumpur to service the government of Malaysia and then prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
“The contract was awarded after what industry insiders say was quick fire pitch – with Apco beating off competitors including Burson-Marsteller to secure the PR and communications role with the Malaysian government,” PublicAffairsAsia reported.
The Apco contract, worth an estimated RM3mil a year, however became mired in controversy when it was revealed that the company also worked for what is known as the “Jewish lobby” in Washington.
Najib’s administration then dropped the contract and Stadlen temporarily moved to work for FBC Media.
In 2011, Sarawak Report exposed that FCB Media had won contracts worth RM84mil and RM15mil from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Sarawak government to promote Najib and then Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud and various government projects to UK and US news stations such as BBC, CNBC and CNN.
This was in violation of those countries’ broadcast laws, and after the Sarawak Report exposé, the broadcasters’ above axed their contracts with FCB Media.
That didn’t seem to be bad news for Stadlen, who then moved to work directly for the PMO – his office was located just a few doors down the corridor from Najib’s own national communications team’s office, the whistleblowing portal reported in 2015.
In November that year, when queried in Parliament, the Prime Minister’s Department claimed that Stadlen was not a government employee and, as such, was not paid a salary and allowance by the government.
All this came around the same time that Stadlen, responding to a query from the New York Times’ (NYT) about Najib, his wife Datin Rosmah Mansor and his stepson Riza Aziz, and what the US newspaper described as a lavish lifestyle, said that the premier had inherited his wealth.
“Mr Najib’s office, in a statement, said, ‘The prime minister does not track how much Mr Aziz earns or how such earnings are reinvested.’ As for the prime minister himself, the statement said he had ‘received inheritance’,” NYT reported.
The claim that Najib had inherited such wealth from his father, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, Malaysia’s second prime minister, outraged Najib’s own siblings.
His brothers issued statements denying that their father, as a civil servant, had ever accumulated such wealth.
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