The website said the PAS president had, in his court statement, explained why the words of the audio recording attributed to Nik Abduh Nik Aziz did not mean the party had received large sums of money from Umno.

“To have authorised these remarks in this section of his sworn statement to the court, Hadi would have had to have listened to the recording (or he must now blame his top London lawyers for submitting a false and unauthorised statement),” it said.

Hadi reportedly told the media yesterday that he could not comment on the audio recording as he had not heard it.

“I didn’t watch the video (clip). I didn’t read (about it). Hence I don’t want to comment,” he was quoted as saying by Malaysiakini.

The clip is seen as a key piece of evidence in allegations that PAS received millions from Umno before the 14th general election.

Nik Abduh last year denied he was the person in the recording, but recently admitted it was him.

Rewcastle-Brown, in her article published by Sarawak Report in August 2017, among others, suggested that senior PAS leaders could have received RM90 million from Najib Razak.

Hadi then filed his suit at the High Court of Justice in London. Early this month, both parties agreed to an out-of-court settlement.

Sarawak Report said Hadi had submitted a detailed analysis of the content and meaning of the tape to the London court in his response to Sarawak Report’s defence.

“This new line from Hadi continues a pattern in this case of saying one thing in Malaysia and another to the London court. The documents are there for all to see and they do not match his public remarks,” it said, adding that the PAS leader had recently reached an out-of-court settlement over his suit against Sarawak Report because he did not want to “answer questions in the witness box”.