Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) has denied allegations that it was in cahoots with the Malaysian government to discredit former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in a controversial report linking the latter to terrorist financiers.

SBS' Dateline current affairs programme executive producer Michael Carey said any claims that the organisation had worked with the Malaysian government were "ridiculous" and "farcical to the extreme".

Lashing out at the report last Saturday, Free Anwar Campaign (FAC) webmaster Raja Petra Kamarudin (left) said Bernama - which picked up the story for circulation locally - was in collusion with some SBS individuals who may have become unwitting allies in an alleged campaign by the government to vilify Anwar.

The programme also linked FAC to Muslim groups under US investigations for funding terrorist activities.

When contacted today, Carey said: "It is ludicrous to suggest we would conspire with the government to come up with our report. We started researching it (the programme) based on documents that we obtained."

He further stressed that the organisation stood by the report presented by its Bangkok-based correspondent Ginny Stein.

Dateline had broadcast a report to an Australia-wide audience last Wednesday on Malaysia's purported role as a financial hub for terrorist organisations.

The report raised questions over Anwar's supposed links to "hardline Muslim fundamentalists" as well as his connections to US-based organisations which have been subjected to investigations.

'Baseless' allegations

Anwar has threatened lawsuits against the local media, SBS and US-based terrorism consultancy Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE), whose executive director Rita Katz was quoted in the Dateline report.

She had said Anwar was associated with US-based organisations that are the subject of "huge, huge investigations".

Responding to Anwar's statement, Carey said he was not concerned about the legal threat.

"We did our investigations and tried to get responses. We also tried to get a response from the government. We contacted the Foreign (Affairs) Ministry but they said they had no comment," he added.

Meanwhile, Bernama editor-in-chief Jaafar Hussin, also rejected as "baseless and untrue" allegations that the national news agency had an ulterior motive in picking up on the Dateline report.

"We have a correspondent in Melbourne who just reported what was said in the programme. If it happens anywhere else in the world where we have a correspondent, they would also file reports," he said.

Questioned about additional information in Bernama's report, which were not from Dateline - such as the specific RM300,000 figure purportedly to pay for the education of Anwar's children - Jaafar said the sum was named by a source contacted by the correspondent.

On the threatened lawsuit by Anwar, Jaafar said if the legal action materialises, the agency would have to take it as "a risk we have to face in the media industry".

Saudi businessman

Based on a transcript of the Dateline report, the Anwar link was established by Katz through the deputy premier's former role as a board member of the Washington-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Katz said that the IIIT had been raided by US authorities as it was suspected of funding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group which has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Israel.

However, Anwar's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said that the US government had cleared the Islamic foundation of alleged links to terrorist groups.

"(The) US authorities have done their own investigation into IIIT, as they have done to other Islamic organisations after the Sept 11 attacks, and found no evidence linking IIIT with terrorism," she said on Saturday.

Anwar was also implicated via his relationship with Rahim Ghouse, the Melbourne-based International FAC frontman.

Rahim co-owned a company, Abrar International, together with blacklisted Saudi businessman Sheikh Yassin al-Kadi and another Malaysian businesman Wan Hasni Wan Sulaiman.

Both Rahim and Wan Hasni were interviewed for the Dateline report. Rahim claimed that he no longer has any contact with Yassin following a disagreement with him in 1998, while Wan Hasni was said to have resigned from Abrar in April.

Al-Qaeda link?

DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang who was interviewed for the programme, said he was questioned about Anwar and the IIIT's links with terrorism financing, but said he had not expected the allegations to be the main focus of the report.

"When I was interviewed, I did not know that Anwar was targeted. (The reporter) questioned me based on a statement I made late last year in relation to an investigation I called over (an alleged) link between a Malaysian organisation and al-Qaeda.

"I told them I was not aware of any link (between Anwar and terrorist financing)," he said when contacted this afternoon.

Lim added that the interview was conducted around August.