IPOH, Oct 1 — Former PetroSaudi International executive Xavier Andre Justo said today he and his wife are writing a book about his personal experiences throughout the 1MDB saga.

He also commented on Billion Dollar Whale, written by Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope and Tom Wright, correcting portions related to his role in the ongoing corruption scandal.

Justo dedicated the book, which could be published in a year’s time, to his son, his family and friends who “shared our sufferings and had supported us forever”.

“It will be about a personal experience, a journey through hell, about love, friendship and deception. A human story,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

“It will not be a 1MDB book, or a financial crime story; for this you have Google, the books about 1MDB and some newspapers.”

He claimed the book was not motivated by personal gain, and that part of the proceeds would be channelled to Malaysian charities.

Justo said the family needed to tell their truth and explain their side of the story, with “all the details showing the ignominy of these criminals”.

Teasing of its contents, he said it would detail the unimaginable lengths criminal would go to steal and protect themselves.

“But you will need a year of patience probably, the writing of a book with no assistance and with a life to recover is long and not an easy task.”

On alleged inaccuracies in Whale, he listed eight pages with information he disputed.

These include his motivations for exposing the alleged fraud involving Petrosaudi and 1MDB, the amount of internal PSI communications he had possessed, and his initial interactions with Sarawak Report, among others.

Justo said he planned to read next Sarawak Report founder Clare Rewcastle-Brown’s book on the same topic, The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose.

“I consider Clare Rewcastle-Brown and Bradley Hope my friends, that’s why I feel right in commenting their writings concerning me,” he added.

Justo had been arrested, tried and convicted in Thailand for attempting to blackmail Petrosaudi over a stolen cache of documents in 2015.

He was a key player in the early days of the 1MDB scandal, when he sought to sell the same cache to a local news organisation whose subsequent reports based on the documents caused it to be suspended by the Home Ministry.

Petrosaudi and 1MDB entered into an abortive joint venture in 2012 for which the Malaysian firm still paid the former US$700 million (RM2.7 billion). Justo’s documents, which he tried to sell for US$2 million to the Malaysian outfit, were believed to be linked to that deal.

 

He was granted a royal pardon in conjunction with late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 70 years on the throne and Queen Sirikit’s birthday in 2016.