KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 10 — Swiss national Xavier Andre Justo, serving a three-year jail term for extortion and attempted blackmail, claimed that he only targeted his former employer PetroSaudi and not the Malaysian government when he stole 90 gigabytes of data from the firm.

Justo, in his 11-page written confession to the Thai police, said it was never his intention to be embroiled in a media campaign to bring down Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the government.

In the confession, sighted by Malay Mail, Justo wrote of his various attempts to blackmail PetroSaudi between July and October 2013.

Justo initially demanded 3.5 million Swiss francs (RM15.4 million), which was later reduced to 2.5 million Swiss Francs.

He intended to extort the money by threatening to expose the data but was ignored by PetroSaudi, although some senior officials did meet with Justo in Thailand.

Justo failed to find other quarters to buy the stolen data until London-based businessman Kamal Siddiqi connected him to Clare Rewcastle-Brown of Sarawak Report in mid-2014.

He claimed Rewcastle-Brown was instrumental in reviving his plan to get PetroSaudi to reconsider his demands for a financial settlement in return for his silence.

The two met thrice between June and October last year, when he passed a portion of the stolen data to Rewcastle-Brown.

Thai police believe that an article by The Sunday Times of London exposing ties between former UK premier Tony Blair and PetroSaudi was based on information Justo passed to Rewcastle-Brown.

Rewcastle-Brown’s brother-in-law is former prime minister Gordon Brown, who ousted Blair as the British Labour party chief and British premier.

London-based website Sarawak Report has for years focused on corruption and illegal logging in Borneo but recently shifted to the financial troubles at 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

Thai police sources believe that after The Sunday Times published the article, Rewcastle-Brown sought Malaysian buyers for the stolen data.

Justo claimed in his confession that Rewcastle-Brown introduced several Malaysian politicians as potential buyers but admitted he never met them because their mode of payment was not acceptable.

He said he was introduced to The Edge Media Group owner Tong Kooi Ong whom Justo claimed agreed to pay US$2 million, through another politician.

Justo detailed in his confession various methods he tried to get paid for the data he had handed over to Tong but to no avail.

He said he was coming up with a new scheme to get the money from Tong when he was arrested by Thai police.

Tong and his CEO Ho Kay Tat had twice issued statements denying they intended to pay Justo.

They reiterated they only said they would pay because they wanted to obtain the documents for the sake of corporate governance.