Justo: I was told to say Najib is a nice guy

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 1): 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) whistle-blower Xavier Andre Justo claimed that he was told to say that former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was “a nice guy” when he was in prison in Bangkok in 2015.

Justo, a former executive at PetroSaudi International, said this at the 10th International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing 2018 yesterday, where he was a speaker.

He claimed that a day before the visit from the Malaysian police, he was supplied with a list of questions and answers.

Speaking to reporters later, Justo said: “I had to confess that I stole the data [from PetroSaudi], that I manipulated the data and that I was working with the Malaysian opposition with the help of a journalist, that the PetroSaudi-1MDB deal was a legit one, that Mr [Tarek] Obaid [of Petrosaudi] was a nice guy, and that Mr [Najib] Razak was a nice guy.

“This (list of Q&A) was given to me by Mr Paul Finnegan, the fake Scotland Yard detective, a day before the visit from the Malaysian delegation,” he said,
On Dec 16, 2015, Bangkok Post reported that Federal Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director Commissioner Datuk Seri Amar Singh Ishar Singh, then Malaysia’s Federal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) deputy director, had accompanied by two colleagues to meet Justo at Bangkok Remand Prison.

Justo, also said the Malaysian police officials were very nice to him, and that he had nothing against them.

When asked if he has met Najib, Justo said: “No it didn’t go that far, I would have loved to have met him, but it didn’t [happen].”

However, he reiterated that he has met fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, twice before — once at the Nobu Restaurant in London, and the second time on a yacht in the south of France.

“I met Jho Low twice. I didn’t talk business with him. I was instructed not to speak about the 1MDB business, so we just spoke about the food and the weather. As I said before, he didn’t strike me as a very brilliant guy, but he was a brilliant crook,” he said.

However, in an interview with The Star in May, Justo had said that he had met Jho Low twice to discuss matters between 1MDB and PetroSaudi, and that he had shared these details with the Swiss authorities.

‘World needs a good whistle-blower’
In his conversation with reporters yesterday, Justo also said that the world needs a good whistle-blower story or, in other words, an exemplification of something good that has happened to a whistle-blower.

He cited the examples of Edward Snowden who was responsible for the US National Security Agency leaks and Herve Falciani who exposed the wrongdoings at HSBC’s Swiss Private Bank. Snowden is wanted in the US and is now said to be in Russia, while Falciani fled to Spain from Switzerland.

“As of today all the examples of whistle-blowers that you have, there is no one that you can say by doing what he did is living a better life, or a similar life as before.

“I am also one of the examples. I did what I did… but I lost all my money pretty much, I spent 18 months in prison, my wife was tortured mentally, I can’t open a bank account because my name is on some data bases. So this is not giving good examples to potential whistle-blowers,” he said.

Justo, however, said he will blow the whistle again, except that he would do things differently.

“I just needed to go back to my country, and give the data to my country [Switzerland] and live there. I was naïve, arrogant and stupid for thinking I was safe in Thailand. I thought I was protected there. I just forgot that with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, you can bribe the world… with money, you buy everything,” he said.

When asked how he felt when The Edge Media Group did not pay him the money he had requested for the data that he had leaked, Justo made it clear that there is no bad blood between him and The Edge.

“I have answered this question already. The Edge’s owner [Datuk Tong Kooi Ong] and chief executive officer [and publisher Ho Kay Tat] are my friends. The last time I came to KL, I had a very nice dinner with Kay Tat.

“Whatever is going on between us is between us. They are my friends. I haven’t been paid but they are my friends. We remain friends and bonded forever because I did something but so did they, they relayed the information I provided, so thanks to them too, we have a new government [in Malaysia] today,” he said.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on Nov 1, 2018.

Click here for more property stories.