1MDB whistleblower doubts China will let Jho Low leave
1MDB whistleblower Xavier Justo has suggested that China is unlikely to release fugitive financier Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) to face charges in Malaysia.
When met at a forum organised by independent publisher Gerakbudaya, Justo said he does not know Low’s latest whereabouts beyond media reports claiming that the latter was living under house arrest in Shanghai, China.
However, he believes Low (above) would have been arrested already if he was not in China.
“He’s probably in China. I think there is no other place where he can stay. If he leaves China, he’d be arrested pretty much in all the countries of the world,” he told reporters in Petaling Jaya, Selangor yesterday.
He also raised doubts that China would allow Low to leave the country.
“The thing about him (Low) being brought back to Malaysia, I have some doubts.
“He deserves to be here in Malaysia, to be sentenced in Malaysia. But I don’t see why China would allow him to leave the country. To make (Prime Minister) Anwar (Ibrahim) happy or for the good sake of Malaysia?
“I don’t think they will allow a businessperson, who has been doing major deals in China with high-level executives there, to come back to Malaysia to tell about his doings there. There are no reasons to justify that. But I hope to be wrong,” he said.
Justo, who blew the lid off the global 1MDB scandal, left PetroSaudi International in 2011, two years after the company received US$1 billion from its now infamous joint venture with 1MDB.
1MDB whistleblower Xavier Justo
When he left, he did so with a cache of emails that he said he took along as “insurance”.
He eventually passed the information in the emails to Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown and a Malaysian media mogul after Petrosaudi failed to pay US$2 million (RM9 million) in arrears that Justo said he was owed.
He was jailed in Thailand in August 2015 after he reportedly confessed to blackmail charges Petrosaudi brought against him. The alleged crime was supposed to have taken place in 2013.
When he left, he did so with a cache of emails that he said he took along as “insurance”.
He eventually passed the information in the emails to Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown and a Malaysian media mogul after Petrosaudi failed to pay US$2 million (RM9 million) in arrears that Justo said he was owed.
He was jailed in Thailand in August 2015 after he reportedly confessed to blackmail charges Petrosaudi brought against him. The alleged crime was supposed to have taken place in 2013.
kt comments: What "alleged" crime - when he confessed to blackmail charges Petrosaudi brought against him and was jailed in Thailand for that crime. He was freed only because the Thai King gave an amnesty to some prisoners on an auspicious occasion.Don't masked his crime, conviction and imprisonment because he was embraced by KKKKKK and provided material against Najib!
Macau or Shanghai
On Tuesday (May 30), MACC reportedly said it “believes” Low is hiding in Macau.
According to an Al Jazeera report, MACC said individuals who have seen Low in Macau confirmed this.
The report added that the revelation comes just weeks after the arrest of a relatively unknown 1MDB suspect Kee Kok Thiam.
Kee, understood to have been Low’s alleged aide, died in a hospital on Wednesday (May 31) after suffering a stroke.
However, the co-author of a best-selling book on the 1MDB scandal, Bradley Hope, dismissed the idea that Low is in Macau.
Author Bradley Hope
Instead, Hope said Low is believed to be under house arrest in Shanghai.
“He was in Macau a lot from 2015-2018, as well as Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Thailand but after (former prime minister) Najib’s (Abdul Razak) electoral defeat his movements were more restricted to the mainland,” he tweeted.
He also alleged that China is holding Low on a tight leash because of negotiations with Malaysia.
Instead, Hope said Low is believed to be under house arrest in Shanghai.
“He was in Macau a lot from 2015-2018, as well as Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Thailand but after (former prime minister) Najib’s (Abdul Razak) electoral defeat his movements were more restricted to the mainland,” he tweeted.
He also alleged that China is holding Low on a tight leash because of negotiations with Malaysia.
Ktemoc's animosity towards Justo is likely because he remains trapped in the same old nonsensical "There is No wrongdoing with 1MDB", "Najib is innocent", "Najib is just a victim of Mahathir's machinations".
ReplyDeleteI don't blame the Thai Government on this matter.
Back in 2015, it looked like Justo was threatening to expose his employer PetroSaudi on certain transactions. The Thai authorities thought it just involved a normal commercial transaction, which would amount to Justo commiting blackmail.
It has since been proven that the said PetroSaudi transactions itself was a criminal transaction, and two senior PetroSaudi executives have been indicted in Switzerland Courts with fraud - Tarek Obaid and Patrick Mahoney.
Switzerland has jurisdiction because the illicit gains from the fraud were invested by the individuals through Swiss banks and some of it was spent in Switzerland on luxury goods and deluxe holidays.
So...the Petrosaudi transaction itself was criminal fraud, and it becomes really murky whether Justo really was commiting blackmail.
The prosecution of Justo was very likely an attempt to suppress exposure of the fraudulent Petrosaudi transactions.
I don't think Justo has any interest re-litigating his case, but he could have good grounds to get his original conviction dismissed.
Malaysiakini is probably correct in downplaying Justo's conviction.