Malaysia to hear out Bishop over charges for Four Corners crew

Kuala Lumpur will take into account Canberra’s views in ­deciding whether to charge an ABC TV crew.

Malaysia's PM Najib Razak shakes hands with supporters in Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian government has said it will take into account any approach from Canberra in ­deciding whether to press criminal charges against an ABC TV crew arrested after trying to question Prime Minister Najib Razak about a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal.

“I think everyone is looking at what happened in a holistic manner,” a spokesman for Mr Najib, Tengku Sariffuddin, told The Australian yesterday.

“They will take into consideration what happened and if the Australian government make a statement I think that will be taken into account; what ­happened, how the situation evolved and subsequent events, including any approach from the Australian government.”

Four Corners reporter Linton Besser and cameraman Louie Eroglu have been holed up in a hotel in Kuching, Sarawak state, since they were released early on Sunday morning following six hours of questioning at a police station.

Their passports were ­returned late on Sunday but they are unable to leave the country while police investigate whether they breached Section 186 of the penal code by obstructing a ­public officer — a charge which carries a maximum two-year jail sentence.

While the decision on ­whether to press charges would ordinarily be made by a local deputy public prosecutor, Mr ­Sariffuddin said, because of the high-profile nature of the case, “I think the Attorney-General is looking into it as well”.

“As you know, there are concerns about security in Malaysia at the moment,” he said referring to recent intelligence that terrorists were plotting an attack on the Prime Minister.

“I think they tried to push in and that caused a situation where everybody was caught off guard and so they were taken in for questioning.”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the government was raising the issue “at the ­appropriate level within the Malaysian government”. “I’m always concerned when there are instances of a crackdown on freedom of speech, in democracies particularly, and I’m also concerned about the freedom that journalists have to carry out their work in places around the world, so these are matters that we raise with governments from time to time and we certainly will with Malaysia,” she said in Fiji.