FORMER PetroSaudi executive Xavier Justo has accused the Barisan Nasional administration of having a hand in his arrest and imprisonment for three years in Thailand, over his attempt to release documents linking former prime minister Najib Razak to the multi-billion-dollar 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal.

In an interview with The Star, Justo said that while he was in prison, he was visited by Malaysian government officials who wanted to have him extradited to Malaysia.

“I didn’t do the crime, this blackmail attempt and stealing of data. I didn’t do it. But even if you do all that in Thailand, you can be out on bail. Those are called minor offences,” said Justo.

“But I received a three-year sentence. By coincidence, the day of my sentencing was in August 2015. If you add three years, it’s August 2018. So, I have been told that maybe they wanted me in jail until after the elections.”

Justo, who leaked documents pertaining to 1MDB after leaving PetroSaudi in 2011, said he met billionaire financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, twice. 

He said the two meetings with Low  were to discuss matters stood between1MDB and PetroSaudi International.

“I met him twice, I have told the Swiss authorities the details,” he said in The Star.

The documents leaked by Justo allegedly offered incriminating evidence of Najib’s role in embezzling and laundering of funds from 1MDB.

“(PetroSaudi’s top officials) Tarek Obaid and Patrick Mahony had access to the real numbers, but I knew something was wrong. There are commissions in the oil business. That’s the way it is and there is no need to be naive. Oil business means corruption,” he said.

“It is something to take 1% or 5%, but it is something else to take more than 80% of the amount in commission. I knew that something was wrong, but I wasn’t expecting this madness.”

Switzerland, Singapore and the United States are among countries currently pursuing investigations into laundering of 1MDB funds on their soil.

“It is unbelievable how greedy, how insane, how mad those people are. They really thought that whatever was in the central bank of Malaysia was theirs. ‘We need a billion. Just open the safe. We need three more billion. Let’s issue a bond against some fake collateral. We need more. Let’s do that’,” said Justo.

“They really thought that this Malaysian money was their own money,” he told The Star.

Justo, who has met prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad twice in the past week, said he is trying to clear his name after being convicted of blackmailing PetroSaudi over its ties to 1MDB.

“I had never been convicted of anything. I was a banker and quite a successful one. I didn’t need this, but it happened, so if people think I am a bad guy, so be it.

“If people think I am a hero, I am not a hero. The real heroes are the people of Malaysia.” – May 25, 2018.