ID :
375169
Fri, 07/24/2015 - 13:08
Auther :

We Misled Justo To Get Evidence Against Joint Venture, Says Edge Media Group Chairman

KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 (Bernama) -- The chairman of The Edge Media Group has admitted misleading former PetroSaudi International executive Andre Xavier Justo about paying him for information on the 1MDB-PetroSaudi International joint venture. "Yes, we misled him. But that was the only way to get hold of the evidence to expose how a small group of Malaysians and foreigners cheated the people of Malaysia of US$1.83 billion (RM6.97 billion)," Tong Kooi Ong said in a statement Friday. The Swiss, who is in jail in Thailand, accused of trying to blackmail PetroSaudi, told The Straits Times in a prison interview that a prominent Malaysian businessman had promised to pay him US$2 million for information stolen from his former employer but never did. "His (Justo's) statement confirmed what we have said earlier i.e. we never paid anyone," Tong said. "As for Justo's allegations that we told him we intended to tamper with the documents and that our objective was to bring down the government, surely if we had such intentions we would not tell it to someone we were meeting for the first time. "All the more so when we know he will be upset with us because we will eventually not pay him what he wants." Tong said there was no tampering because The Edge immediately did a digital fingerprint of the hard disc that contained over 400,000 emails and documents and secured it. "What is in the discs we have given Bank Negara Malaysia (Malaysia's Central Bank), the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission this week is the exact copy as the one Justo passed to us and he has said he did not tamper with it. "Furthermore, the money trail we have put together and passed to investigators showing how money from 1MDB were moved into the accounts of various people at several global banks in several countries can be easily verified by investigators with help from their counterparts in this country," he said. -- BERNAMA

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