Swiss NGO Links Malaysian Minister To LA Murder Case, Massive Illegal Logging & Corruption - ENS

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BASEL, Switzerland, March 9, 2011 (ENS) - Protests over timber corruption that has made a billionaire of the chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawak and enriched his family at the expense of the state's indigenous and other citizens have spilled over to the streets of San Francisco, Seattle, Ottawa and London.

A Swiss nonprofit organization is asking the law enforcement authorities in the United States to investigate what they allege is a murder on U.S. soil and illegally acquired assets stashed in the United States as well as other countries.

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A new report released today by the Swiss Bruno Manser Fund exposes the Sarawak timber industry's complex structure and its links to Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has been Sarawak's Chief Minister since March 26, 1981. Elections will soon be held in Sarawak, likely within the next six weeks. In February, the nonprofit Bruno Manser Fund launched an international campaign against what the group calls "the blatant corruption and abuse of public funds" by Taib and his family and political associates.

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Today in San Francisco, anti-Taib demonstrators went to the Citibank branch at 260 California Street in the city center. The building is the seat of Taib's Sakti International Corporation, which used to be headed by the late Ross Boyert. After having been dismissed by the Taibs, Boyert filed legal action against Sakti in a San Francisco court in early 2007. Boyert, who administered the Taib family's U.S. properties for 12 years, was found dead last September in a Los Angeles hotel room with a plastic bag tied around his head. In an interview with the London-based Sarawak Report given weeks before his death, Boyert said he and his family had been harassed and terrorized by Taib agents ever since he had filed the case.

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2011/2011-03-09-01.html