THE WEEK REVIEW | UPDATED SEPTEMBER 7, 2015 07:30 PM ET:- Sitting in the blue uniform worn by prisoners in an office within the prison complex of Klong Prem in Bangkok, is Xavier Justo, the man who played an important role scandal that has since then rocked the Malaysian government.
In this interview with Le Temps (Letemps.ch), a Swiss-French daily, one important detail does not escape the attention of the readers, and it is the confusing 'sentiment' expressed by Justo over the information he supplied to Sarawak Report founder Clare Rewcastle Brown.
After saying he thought the reports published by Sarawak Report was probably 'altered', he continued saying he could not certify whether this was really the case.
Justo was jailed for 'blackmailing' PetroSaudi, and is probably aware that several other publications across the globe have the original copy of the data he stole from the former joint venture partner of 1MDB.
Rewcastle Brown, who is the niece of the former Prime Minister of England Gordon Brown, denied having anything to do with alterations or doctoring of the original documents stolen by Justo.
In a telephone conversation with Le Temps, Rewcastle Brown said as a journalist, "I would not do such a thing."
She told Le Temps some important details of the difficulties she had to access the data's stored on the disk provided by Justo, seeking help from the British daily Sunday Times, where she was given all assistance to resolve the technical issues. Sunday Times kept a copy of the original files, and those are the files extracted from the original disk.
Based on Rewcastle Brown's statement, it could be possible that Justo is the one behind any doctoring of the documents and this would have been done with the intent to hurt PetroSaudi more.
Since his aim was to make quick bucks out of the disk, and his jail sentence is about the blackmailing of PetroSaudi, it is clear Justo still has something to hide.
Whether he doctored the documents before handing it over to Sarawak Report can easily be verified since Sunday Times has a copy - along with other publications as reported by Le Temps - of the original file.
A verification of the copies held by the various news organisations would clear suspicions that the Sarawak born Clare Rewcastle Brown had doctored the files before publishing them.
However, Brown insisted to Le Temps that Justo was only 'one of the sources' of the revelations that has caused so much destabilisation
"There are many sources, and all of them concurs," said the UK based Sarawak Report director.
As a matter of fact, it is an article published in July by the Asian Wall Street Journal, which indicated that US$681 million was traced into Najib's own personal private banking account, that triggered the anger of many Malaysians and the allegations of corrupt practices against the government's chief.
WSJ, in its July report, said it was not sure the money found into Najib's account was from 1MDB but that investigations into wrong doings by the Malaysian sovereign fund had led to the uncovering of Najib's accounts with the unusually large sum of cash.
Since then, former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohammad has said he believe the money was from 1MDB, while the money trail from 1MDB and Najib's account - if any - still rests on blurred lines.
Najib has removed the Attorney General Gani Patial, deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yasin and several other top officials from office, and said the billions in Malaysian ringgit found in his account was a donation from a rich and generous Middle Eastern source.
On its part, PetroSaudi told Le Temps via email answers, there were no 'perversions' in its transaction with 1MDB.
"The details of the join-venture is public domain for a long time now and can be found in the financial audits of the 1MDB. The Malaysian firm invested US$1.8 billion in the joint-venture, and left with a profit of US$474 million," said PetroSaudi in a statement.
The company never replied to queries from various media outlets on whether it can prove the documents published by Sawarak Report were doctored.
It simply stated the records can be set straight from 1MDB's book-keeping.
The Malaysians are still waiting for the books of the battered company to be made public.
As for Justo, the bad guy in the game according to Le Temps, he said he is consumed by shock and remorse.
Shock because he expected a jail term of just over a year but was handed a 3 year jail sentence.
Remorseful because he betrayed friends at PetroSaudi - which is hard to comprehend.
The question is how could he feel so confident, expecting a one year jail term for cooperating with the Bangkok police, while expressing remorse and the wish that he could ask his 'friends' from PetroSaudi forgive him?
Did he not expect the short jail term with the hope that he could enjoy the hefty 4 million Swiss Francs pay-off deal he was offerd by PetroSaudi to sever ties from the company?
His claims to Le Temps that he did not want to create trouble for Najib Razak, regretting the street protests, is also doubtful.
"It was a huge transaction. That is why I thought it was of interest to make them public," he said, adding that he saw nothing illegal in the transaction, otherwise he "would have withheld the information" had he seen anything dangerous in them.
According to several newspapers and news portals, which based their reports mostly on the data's stolen by Justo, a huge portion of the US$700 million is still unaccounted for.
They think it went into the accounts of a businessman close to the Najib family.
The US$700 million these publications said, went into Jho Low's acount following a complex transaction that presided over the deal between PetroSaudi and 1MDB.
This has not been clarified, since then.
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The Week Review Editors
The Week Review Editors
