Justo denies saying cops asked him to state Najib was best PM

PETALING JAYA: 1MDB whistleblower Xavier Andre Justo has denied that he ever told the media that the Malaysian police had asked him to say that Najib Razak was the best prime minister.

He was replying to earlier remarks by Bukit Aman Commercial CID director Amar Singh today who refuted a claim purportedly made by Justo that in 2015, Malaysian police had forced him to admit, among other things, that Najib was the best prime minister.

“I want to explain that I’m quite sure that I never said these words,” Justo said in a post on Facebook.

He reiterated his earlier clarification that former UK policeman Paul Finnegan and the Thai police were the ones who had given him questions from the Malaysian police and wanted him to make the statement about Najib.

“I haven’t checked the words that I pronounced during the conference where I supposedly told that, but I’m quite convinced that what I said was about this Paul Finnegan and the Thai police, not the Malaysian police,” Justo said.

Justo also apologised if he had made a mistake.

“If I’m wrong, please do accept my humbles apologies. I’m a human being and English is my third language. Also, I was speaking in front of 1,000 people with a high level of stress.

“If I’m correct and I didn’t say these words, let’s say it’s a newspaper mistake.

“I do respect your country and your laws and I’m not in any way trying to interfere with them,” he wrote in his post.

Justo, who signed off his Facebook post with “A non-liar human being”, also pointed out that Amar had treated him with a lot of respect and fairness when visiting him in prison in 2015.

In a statement earlier today, Amar revealed that the 57 questions they had asked the Swiss national in Bangkok focused on five issues, namely his background, PetroSaudi, Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown, the country’s security, and negotiations for the exchange of information and documents.

Amar went on to say that the supposed questions that were posed by the police, as claimed by Justo, were not relevant to its investigations. “It will be silly for us to ask such questions.”

Justo was reported to have said: “The Malaysian delegation was made up of three Malaysian policemen and they told me to say I was a bad man, I liked money and Tarek and PetroSaudi were nice. And also I had to say Najib was the best PM ever…”

However, when contacted, Justo clarified that it was the Thai police who had forced him to confess “all these lies” and not the Malaysian police as reported.