Whistleblower website Sarawak Report have demanded that Protection Group International (PGI) confirm if they were quoted accurately by Malaysia's press.

The website's lawyer Reed Smith had urged PGI to confirm if the New Straits Times report dated June 23, 2015 had attributed a "wholly accurate and unedited quotation" by the firm's staff.

"If it is not, please confirm the precise respects in which the quote is inaccurate and/or has been edited and provide full details of any omitted text, the identity of the 'expert from PGI' who gave the quote referred to if such a quote was given.

"(Also please confirm) whether you consider the wording set out above to be a wholly accurate summary of your investigations; if it is not, please confirm the precise respects in which it is inaccurate," wrote Smith.

Sarawak Report said that the letter to PGI was a prelude to "further proceedings".

The New Straits Times report on the arrest of PetroSaudi International Ltd former executive Xavier Andre Justo had also quoted an unnamed official from PGI, described as a London-based private cyber-crime forensics unit.

In quoting the PGI source, the article alluded that Sarawak Report had published digital documents from PetroSaudi that was "tampered" by Justo.

Discrediting detractors

The article also suggested that Justo was a "malicious" former employee who stole confidential data and threatens to publish it for personal gain.

"Published data then invariably goes through selective editing, and not infrequently plain forgery, in an attempt to up the ante and create the most damaging story possible.

"This case is an almost textbook match to that profile," the PGI source told New Straits Times, which is known fo its links to Umno.

Since the emergence of the New Straits Times report and Justo's arrest by Thai authorities, backers of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said allegations made by Sarawak Report and The Edge Media Group - both of which published excerpts of leaked PetroSaudi correspondences - has been discredited.

However, critics of 1MDB and Najib, most prominently Dr Mahathir Mohamad, have maintained that 1MDB still have to account for its questionable business practices.

USD1.9b mystery

Mahathir today said that one of 1MDB's biggest mystery - the USD1.9 billion loan to PetroSaudi - have yet to be properly accounted for.

1MDB had entered a joint-venture with little known PetroSaudi shortly after the firm was established by the Najib-administration in mid-2009.

The firm had raised RM5 billion through government-guaranteed bonds in August that year and inked the USD1 billion deal on September 29.

A day later, USD700 million was transferred to a Hong Kong-based company Good Star Ltd, controlled by Jho Low, a known Najib associate.

This information was revealed through leaked documents published by Sarawak Report , which formed that catalyst for public scrutiny over 1MDB's business decisions.