"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). His statement confirmed what we have said earlier. We never paid anyone," Datuk Tong Kooi Ong the chairman of The Edge Media Group and Ho Kay Tat the publisher said in a joint statement published on The Malaysian Insider today.
"Justo is obviously an angry man, and understandably so, as he did not get his money," they added.
Their statement was in response to the exclusive story carried by The Straits Times today where Justo claimed that he was promised US$2 million (S$2.7 million) in exchange for data he stole from his former employer, PetroSaudi International.
Justo told The Straits Times in a prison interview that he was never paid what he was promised by a prominent Malaysian businessman for a deal which was reached in Singapore in February on the sale of the documents, which was followed by lengthy discussions on how he would be paid.
"We must say The Straits Times journalist must be very well connected to be given access to Justo in his Bangkok jail. Even our Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, who is now in Bangkok, has so far been refused access to Justo," the duo said.
To Justo's allegations of the intention to tamper with the documents and that the objective was to topple the government, they added that if they did have such intentions, they would not tell it to someone whom they were meeting for the first time, especially so when they knew Justo will not be paid.
"There was no tampering because we 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 gave to Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) this week is the exact copy of the one Justo passed to us, and he has said he did not tamper with it," the statement said further.
The duo said that the money trail that they had 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.
"Justo is understandably a bitter man. But this is not about Justo, neither is it about us. It is about a scheme to cheat the people of Malaysia of US$1.83 billion through the 1MDB-PetroSaudi joint venture.
"So many government agencies are now investigating 1MDB and that it is now almost an insolvent company that needs to be bailed out validates all the work The Edge Media Group has done to expose what had happened," they reiterated.
"We have done nothing wrong and we are here to assist investigators unlike some who seem to have disappeared," they said.
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