KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 31): 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) whistle-blower Xavier Andre Justo claims the Malaysian police delegation who visited him while he was in prison in Bangkok back in 2015, told him to say former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak as being “a nice guy”.

Justo, a former executive at PetroSaudi International, said this as a speaker at the 10th International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing 2018 today.

Justo claimed he was supplied with a list of questions and answers, a day before the police visit.

Speaking to reporters later on the matter, Justo said: “I had to confess that I stole the data [from PetroSaudi]; that I manipulated the data and that I was working with the Malaysian opposition with the help of a journalist; that the PetroSaudi-1MDB deal was a legit one; that Mr [Tarek] Obaid [of Petrosaudi] was a nice guy; and that Mr [Najib] Razak was a nice guy.

“This was given to me by Mr Paul Finnegan, the fake Scotland Yard detective, a day before the visit from the Malaysian delegation,” Justo said.

He however clarified that the Malaysian police officials were very nice to him, and so he has nothing against them.

When asked if he has met Najib, Justo said: “No it didn’t go that far; I would have loved to have met him, but it didn’t [happen].”

However, he reiterated that he has met fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, twice before: Once at the Nobu Restaurant in London, and the second time on a yacht in the south of France.

“I met Jho Low twice. I didn’t talk business with him. I was instructed not to speak about the 1MDB business, so we just spoke about the food and the weather. As I said before, he didn’t strike me as a very brilliant guy, but he was a brilliant crook,” Justo said.

However, in an interview with The Star in May, Justo had said he had met Jho Low twice to discuss matters between 1MDB and PetroSaudi, and that he had shared these details with Swiss authorities.