Swiss whistle-blower Xavier Justo (above) has apologised to federal Commercial Criminal Investigation Department director Amar Singh over what he says is a misunderstanding regarding his (Justo's) claim that police had forced him to say that Najib Abdul Razak was the best prime minister.

In a statement posted on his Facebook page, the former PetroSaudi executive said that he never implied that the confession was imposed on him by the Malaysian police.

"In reply to your press release where you mentioned that I had said 'Malaysian police asked me to say that Najib was the best PM' as quoted by the Malay Mail, I don't remember giving an interview to this media.

"I want to explain that I'm quite sure I never said these words. I said that (British private detective) Paul Finnegan and the Thai police gave me your questions in advance and that they wanted me to say that.

"I have not checked the words that I had pronounced during the conference where I supposedly said that, but I'm quite convinced that what I said was about this Paul Finnegan and the Thai police, not the Malaysian police," wrote Justo.

He then extended his apologies to Amar over the confusion and stressed that he had no intention of going against Malaysian laws.

"If I'm wrong please do accept my humbles apologies. I'm a human being and English is my third language. Also, I was speaking in front of 1,000 people with a high level of stress. If I'm correct and I didn't say these words, let's say it's a newspaper (press reporting) mistake.

"I do respect your country and your laws and I'm not in any way trying to interfere with them. I do respect the law and the police whose duty is to apply it. Furthermore, during your 2015 visit in prison, you treated me with a lot of respect and fairness regardless of me being a prisoner," wrote Justo, signing off the statement as "a non-liar human being".

Three years jail

Earlier this evening, Amar told Justo to "stop lying", this after news reports quoting Justo as saying that he was forced to say that he (Justo) was a bad man, that he liked money and that (PetroSaudi chief executive officer) Tarek (Obaid) and PetroSaudi were nice and that Najib was the best PM.

Amar said such line of questioning would have been irrelevant when in actuality the 57 questions posed to Justo were focused on the data theft relating to PetroSaudi/1MDB and the subsequent attempt to sell or extort to or from third parties with an intent to affect the security of the country.

The purported forced confession from Justo allegedly took place when he was languishing in a Thai prison in 2015 for his role in allegedly attempting to blackmail and extort his former employer, PetroSaudi, a Saudi Arabia-based oil and gas company, with thousands of e-mails purportedly linked to the 1MDB scandal.

He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment but was released after 18 months in December 2016 after being granted royal amnesty by Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn.