Although whistleblower Xavier Andre Justo left Malaysia suddenly on March 4, he says he will not give up the fight and will keep exposing those involved in money laundering and corruption in the multi-billion-dollar 1MDB scandal.
Mr Justo is now back in Switzerland with his wife and their young son.
In a Facebook post dated March 5 which was addressed to “all our Malaysian friends”, Mr Justo wrote that he and his family left Malaysia with great sadness and with hearts broken, but that he “couldn’t take the risk of making the people I love the most suffer again in case things went wrong”.
https://www.facebook.com/xavier.justo.10/posts/495219654497399
He wrote, however, that “this is not the end. The end will be the day we will surrender and forget our principles, but this will never happen!”
He added: “We are fully convinced that Malaysia will wake up soon with a democratic government duly elected!”
In an interview published on scmp.com on Sunday (April 5), Mr Justo said he would “continue to expose the criminal activities of these crooks in the media, through the justice system and through any legal ways”.
He said that he was doing his utmost “to bring these criminals to prison” as he had promised his wife and son that he would not stop until this is fulfilled.
Mr Justo first came in the public eye after he leaked documents related to the 1MDB scandal. A former executive with PetroSaudi, which had entered into a joint venture with 1MDB, he was arrested at his home on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand, on June 22, 2015, stemming from a complaint from officials of PetroSaudi, accusing him of attempting to blackmail the company for 2.5 million Swiss francs (S$3.45 million).
He, along with thousands of foreign prisoners, was granted a royal pardon in December 2016 by King Maha Vajiralongkorn of Thailand.
From Thailand he returned to Switzerland, but came back to Malaysia early last year, saying that he and his family wished to settle there, and were even looking for a school for his son, Zander.
The Justo family ended up fleeing Malaysia a few days after the Pakatan Harapan government collapsed.
Mr Justo had been in meetings with former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad after the latter won the General Election in May 2018, unseating Mr Najib Razak. Najib has been charged with offences related to 1MDB.
On March 1 this year, however, Dr Mahathir resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by Mr Muhyiddin Yassin after a week of uncertainty. The new Prime Minister has shown that he is willing to work with the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), which had been led by Najib.
The son of murdered banker Hussain Najadi, Mr Pascal Najadi, who is in Switzerland, told scmp.com that he had spoken to Mr Justo on the phone after the family had returned to Switzerland.
“He has the information which brought up the 1MDB scandal. So there are a lot of people who don’t like him. With what happened to the Malaysian government, he has to take that decision. He has a wife and a son,” said Mr Najadi. -/TISG
1MDB whistleblower says he stands with Malaysians for justice and would do it all over again