INTERVIEW | For former PetroSaudi International executive Xavier Andre Justo, spending 18 months in a Thai prison could only be described as a nightmare.

In an interview with Malaysiakini yesterday, Justo recalled being in a cramped cell with little sanitation and ventilation, along with a few dozen inmates.

“I was sleeping on the floor in 45-degree heat, with cockroaches. There were people with tuberculosis and strange diseases. It was a frightening experience,” he said.

Justo was jailed in August 2015 after he confessed to blackmail charges brought against him by his former employers. The alleged crime was supposed to have taken place in 2013.

He had left PetroSaudi International in 2011, two years after the company received US$1 billion from the infamous joint-venture with 1MDB. In just six months, the joint-venture flopped. 1MDB has not been able to show what’s left of the money since.

The charges against him, Justo maintained, were trumped up to discredit the PetroSaudi email cache that he had supplied journalists. He was also made to sign a confession to cast those journalists in bad light.

“(The cell) was probably the size of a small room. There were 50 people. I would sometimes wake up to someone’s feet here (points to his face).

“I never committed any offence in my life. I was a retired banker. Living a good life. They put me in this situation. Believe me, you would have confessed like I did, even without committing a crime.

“To get out of this, I would have said I killed John F Kennedy, even if I was not born at the time. I just wanted to go back to my wife and son,” he said.

Wife, kid threatened

Justo said that his arrest was due to collusion between his former employers who were concerned that the email cache would implicate them. At the time, several jurisdictions were already investigating 1MDB for money laundering and violation of banking laws.

He also claimed that Malaysian authorities were involved as well, but declined to reveal names.

In November 2015, Justo filed a suit against Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown and two Malaysian media personalities in Singapore, where he had passed them the email cache. That legal action, he said, was also initiated under duress.

“I was in jail. A shit hole. They came with a lawyer from Singapore, whom I’ve never met. They had some papers for me to sign to sue them (Rewcastle-Brown and company). I obliged, even though I don’t know the contents of the complaint.

“They said I had to continue working for them. ‘Work with us and you’ll be home in time for Christmas, or it is ten years of this nightmare’.

“They asked me to file a case in Singapore and I did it. They could have asked me to file a complaint on the moon and I would have done it.

“It was not easy to experience (being in a Thai jail) when you are used to a normal and decent life,” he said.

Making matters worse, Justo said antagonists had also threatened to jail his wife and send his toddler to a Thai orphanage.

At the time of his arrest, he was in the midst of renovating his sprawling retirement mansion in Koh Samui, Thailand.

Justo said he instructed his wife to leave Thailand after his incarceration for safety reasons, and to put the property up for sale.

“With no one there, people stole the tiles, the lighting and even the good soil. We were in no position to negotiate. It was sold for a fifth of what we paid for.

“They even cut the trees to make fire. In the end, that’s life,” he said.

Although he may have lost his liberty and wealth, Justo said he found comfort in family and friends.

“This was made even. You have nice friends who would do whatever they can for you, (like) take care of your wife. My wife was tough. She had to deal with me being in jail, a baby, the lawyers, the media, and people threatening her with arrest.

“I know she had a lot of character. That’s why I married her. She is tougher than most of the men I know. There is always something good in the bad. That’s life,” he said.

‘People have died’

Over the past week, Justo has been in Malaysia. He has met the MACC and the newly established 1MDB taskforce. He would not say if he was invited to the country by the authorities, but stressed that he paid for his own flight ticket.

Photographs of his meeting with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad last week have been widely circulated. He has declined to reveal details of this meeting as well.

“There is no Malaysian money involved for my appearance here. I’m not into any kind of political agenda. It’s your country. I’m just here to help as much as I can.

“Those people, they are not only criminals because they want the money. But to keep the money, they are able to do anything.

“People have died because of this. People went to jail because of this. Because of the greed, for the sake of keeping the money, they have no limit. These people have to end up in jail,” he said.

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