“What a great moment and what a great privilege,” he wrote in a posting of a photograph of himself with the prime minister today.
Justo’s presence in Malaysia comes on the heels of Clare Rewcastle-Brown of the Sarawak Report blog entering Malaysia after the government withdrew an arrest warrant issued against her for articles published based on hundreds of thousands of emails provided by Justo.
The revelations of the tangled web of financial deals and investments involved Penang-born businessman Jho Low, and government-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad, eventually led to investigations across the world and accusations by the US Justice Department of “kleptocracy” of as much as US$4 billion.
Dr Mahathir, after taking office last week, has ordered fresh investigations into 1MDB and another government-ownned company SRC International, and the flow of hundreds of millions of ringgit through bank accounts in the name of ousted prime minister Najib Razak, who as finance minister had oversight of 1MDB.
The investigations led to a two-day search of Najib’s house and the seizure of almost 300 cartons of luxury handbags and 72 luggage bags containing cash, jewellery and other items.
Justo’s role was in releasing a trove of emails taken from PetroSaudi International’s servers.
In 2015, Justo was convicted in Thailand of attempting to blackmail PetroSaudi with hundreds of thousands of emails taken from the company’s servers. He denied the charge and said he held the documents against a payment of 2.5 million Swiss francs owed to him by the company. He was released after a year under a royal amnesty and repatriated to Switzerland.
Justo, a Swiss national, filed a complaint in March with the Swiss Attorney-General’s Office, accusing PetroSaudi International executives Tarek Obaid and Patrick Mahony, of having made threats, and attempted blackmail, extortion and coercion.
Justo has also accused Obaid of having received funds from 1MDB for PetroSaudi’s RM1.4 billion buyout of the Sarawak bank UBG Bhd, owned by Abdul Taib Mahmud, governor of the state in exchange for Taib’s support for Najib Razak.
Taib was reported to have met Mahathir last week, soon after the May 9 general election led to a stunning defeat for Najib’s Barisan Nasional.
Justo later released the documents to the boss of the Edge financial publications group, Tong Kooi Ong, and Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown. He said they promised him US$2 million for the documents on 1MDB and PetroSaudi, but he did not receive the payment.
Tong later admitted to misleading Justo in order to obtain the documents. He denied government accusations that the information that was published had been tampered with.