‘Whistleblower’ Justo sought Dr M’s intervention to recover dues, book claims

 

Xavier Andre Justo is said to have complained to Dr Mahathir Mohamad that he had been denied payment for supplying critical information in the 1MDB exposé.

PETALING JAYA: 

Swiss national Xavier Andre Justo, 

the only person to pay any kind of price for participating in the 1MDB fiasco

, had to seek Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s intervention to recover payment promised to him, a new book reveals.

Justo observed from afar how his fellow conspirators were basking in the limelight, claiming that they had led the media charge of exposing the 1MDB scandal,

 journalist Leslie Lopez writes in 

The Siege Within

.

In 2015, the former Petrosaudi International IT executive pleaded guilty in a Thai court to blackmail, extortion and peddling data stolen from his employers, for which he was sentenced to three years in prison.

Released under a royal amnesty in December the following year, Justo’s request to be paid his promised fee of US$2 million was refused on grounds that he had 

widely confessed to stealing the PetroSaudi data

, Lopez claims.

Following Pakatan Harapan’s victory at the 2018 general election, Justo presented himself to Mahathir, the newly-installed prime minister, as an 

aggrieved whistle-blower

.

He explained how he had supplied critical information in the 1MDB exposé, only to be 

strung along

, 

dumped

, and denied payment.

Mahathir assured Justo that he would look into the matter,

 the book claims.

But Justo’s paymasters were concerned that they would be incriminating themselves by making the payment, and had to devise an alternative scheme.

Very quickly, the IT rogue was to be presented to the public as the hallowed whistle-blower to the financial scandal that brought down the Najib government. Justo began appearing in radio talk shows and readily gave media interviews.

The financial settlement would follow eight months later, Lopez writes.

1MDB: nasty affair, biased reporting

Lopez, who had been covering the 1MDB debacle for over a decade, described it as a nasty affair, 

laden with selective reporting of accounts that shade the truth

.

Testimonies from several witnesses, including by senior civil servants, produced conflicting accounts, Lopez says.

One personality dismissed altogether any ties to Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, the fugitive financier at the heart of the fiasco.

Low, however, has his own spin.

Can you imagine if I came out to talk. This person would be toast. Of course it’s their word against mine and they would argue that this person is more credible,

 he told Lopez via text.

Low is widely regarded as the mastermind behind the 1MDB scam, billed by the US Department of Justice as the largest kleptocracy case to date.

The Siege Within, is available on pre-order at Lit Books, Amazon Singapore, Shopee, and at bookshops such as Kinokuniya. - FMT