(Sept 9): PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar has issued a letter of demand to the publisher of The New Straits Times and Berita Harian to retract their reports claiming she offered former PetroSaudi International employee Xavier Andre Justo US$2 million in contracts in exchange for information on 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

The Lembah Pantai MP said the notice was sent to the papers yesterday and both were given 48 hours to respond.

"I will commence defamation suits against the publisher if they failed to meet my demands," she told reporters at the PKR headquarters in Petaling Jaya today.

Nurul Izzah is demanding a retraction, apology and an undisclosed amount of damages.

She said she was confident of a conspiracy taking place and hoped the dailies would carry her version.

Nurul, who with other party members recently filed a suit against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for alleged overspending in the 2013 general election, slammed the front page reports of the newspapers yesterday.

She also denied that she had met Justo.

"I categorically deny that I have ever offered US$2 million to Justo in future government contracts when the opposition came into power. I have never met him before," Nurul Izzah said in a statement yesterday.

She said the claim by the government-controlled dailies was an attempt to shift public attention away from issues involving alleged wrongdoing by 1MDB and Najib, who had RM2.6 billion transferred to his personal accounts, a large portion of which was moved ahead of the last general election in 2013.

"The real question is not about Xavier Justo’s so-called stolen documents. It is about what those documents, together with reports by The Wall Street Journal, Sarawak Report and The Edge about the grand corruption, money laundering, embezzlement and electoral bribery allegations surrounding 1MDB," she said in the statement.

Justo is now serving a three-year jail sentence in Thailand for blackmail. – The Malaysian Insider