Malaysian PM's office raps 'AWSJ' over picture mix-up
Malaysian PM's office raps 'AWSJ' over picture mix-up
Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's office on Tuesday complained to The Asian Wall Street Journal after it ran a picture of a top terrorist suspect which it identified as Mahathir.
The illustration of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, allegedly the al- Qaeda mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, was carried in an article on Malaysia in the AWSJ on Monday and captioned "Mahathir Mohamad".
The newspaper published a correction Tuesday saying: "The error was entirely unintentional and wasn't intended to make any implications concerning anyone in Malaysia."
The government of mainly-Muslim Malaysia is extremely sensitive to any suggestions that the country has links to international terrorism and has detained dozens of alleged Islamic militants in the past two years.
Mahathir himself, a regular and bitter critic of alleged Western media bias against his country, has won praise from the White House for his support in the war on terrorism.
The prime minister's office wrote to the AWSJ editor in Hong Kong, Reginald Chua, to say it was appalled by the paper's "callous disregard for accuracy", the official Bernama news agency reported on Tuesday.
The letter, signed by Mahathir's principal private secretary Badariah Arshad, acknowledged the AWSJ's correction but added: "However, we feel it necessary to put on record our dissatisfaction."
The prime minister's office "sincerely hoped that there was no element of mischief on the part of the newspaper", Bernama said.
Pointing out that the AWSJ used a Malaysian flag to accompany a story about Indonesia some six months ago, Badariah said: "While this office prefers to give you the benefit of the doubt, it is nonetheless most disconcerting that the AWSJ continues to commit such obvious errors when it comes to reporting on Malaysia."
Neither the newspaper nor the prime minister's office referred to the real identity of the picture's subject, but it was pointed out by The New Straits Times daily here and is clearly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is in U.S. custody after having been captured in Pakistan recently.
The New Straits Times noted that the illustration of a "balding man with a beard" did not "at all resemble clean-shaven Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who has a full head of hair."
No doubt adding to the government's irritation is the fact that the article which accompanied the picture was about the rejection last week of an appeal by Mahathir's former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, against his conviction and nine-year jail sentence for sodomy.
The article described the failure of the appeal as "stripping the country's opposition of a potential leader at a time when Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad prepares to retire."
Anwar says he was framed to prevent a political challenge to Mahathir, who is due to retire in October after 22 years as prime minister. The government denies the allegation.