Malaysiakini chief executive officer Premesh Chandran has received two threatening e-mails believed to be linked to the recent allegations that the news website was funded by controversial currency speculator George Soros.

The e-mails, which were sent from two separate accounts, one from TMnet and the other Jaring, threatened to cause harm to Chandran allegedly for being a traitor and Zionist.

"The e-mails were received on Tuesday. It is lamentable that the baseless allegations which have been hurled at us (malaysiakini) in the last few weeks has led to such threats," Chandran said.

He added that he has notified the Internet service providers concerned to alert them about the e-mail messages.

"We would like TMnet and Jaring to investigate the e-mail addresses to identify the senders. We will lodge a police report once the senders have been identified," he said.

The e-mails carried the titles "I am watching you" and "Curse you, Zionist!!!".

The Jaring e-mail read, "Hello traitor, You talibarut (closely connected to) Soros. Zionist agent. I'm watching your house 24 hours 7 days a week. Heh! Heh! Go back to Israel before we slaughter you, bastard."

It also included Chandran's home address.

The TMnet e-mail said, "You bastard Zionist! Celaka kau (Damn you) Premesh Chandran. Orang Keling keturunan imigran India tak tahu mengenang budi (Ungrateful Indian immigrant). You have lived in Malaysia. Your parents have lived in Malaysia and now you become a Zionist agent to destroy Malaysia, my beloved country. I will hunt you down and (you will) pay (for) what you did to Malaysia and the Palestine people. You can run but you cannot hide. Pray you will die before I catch you, Zionist agent. Ptuih! Keling sial (Wretched Indian) Allahuakbar! God is great!"

Malaysiakini has been under heavy attack recently for allegedly having links with international financier George Soros.

Last week, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad insinuating that malaysiakini journalists are traitors to the country and "people who love Malaysia would not support malaysiakini".

Soros controversy

The Soros controversy began when foreign publication Far Eastern Economic Review stated in an article titled 'Leveling the Field' in its Feb 8 edition that malaysiakini was among the media organisations in Asia which received funds from Soros.

This attempt was unsuccessful after Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa), which gave a grant as seed capital to malaysiakini last year, showed that malaysiakini was not a recipient of any funds from the American financier. ([#1]Malaysiakini seeks retraction from magazine[/#], Feb 3)

Later, there was another effort to cast aspersions on malaysiakini after the US Embassy bought banner ads in the website. The attempt failed again when it was found that the embassy also took similar ads in a mainstream newspaper's website.

The issue, however, persisted when malaysiakini's former news editor Chong Yen Loong told national news agency Bernama that the website received RM188,000 from the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF), which he "believed to be well-funded by Soros".

Business deal

Chandran immediately issued a statement saying that the money was payment for a business deal between the Centre for Advanced Media, Prague (C@MP), the technology division of venture capital MDLF, and Kini Technologies, the technology arm of malaysiakini's publisher Mkini Dotcom.

Kini Technologies is working in collaboration with C@MP on the online advertising engine project and other projects as part of C@MP's software group, C@MPW@RE. C@MPW@RE will be marketed to other online media start-ups, especially in Third World countries, as a solution to their own online advertising needs.

Chandran added that the Open Society Institute (OSI) funded by Soros was only one of MLDF's 20 funder organisations but none of MDLF's payment to malaysiakini for the software deal came from the OSI, given that C@MP is a self-sustainable division of the venture capital.

Soros, a notorious currency speculator, was labelled a 'moron' by Mahathir who blamed him for causing the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Soros has used part of his wealth to fund charity projects around the world through OSI.