On June 23, the New Straits Times ( NST ) reported on the arrest of Xavier Andre Justo in Thailand. It provided the reason for the arrest and quoted PetroSaudi International (PSI) as well as Protection Group International (PGI), the cyber security company retained by PSI.
Among other things, PGI claimed that 1) the version of a PowerPoint slide published by the Sarawak Report earlier was a copy of the original version that had been tampered with by Justo; and 2) the documents published by Sarawak Report were copies of the original ‘creatively altered’.
Two days later, on June 25, NST published a piece that portrayed Justo as a real lowdown laggard and lout. NST is linked to Umno.
On June 26, the Sarawak Report published a detailed report to prove that the PowerPoint slide asserted by PGI to have been tampered with by Justo bore no alterations to the slide’s contents other than the fact that it had been opened and saved by Justo - as recorded in the metadata.
Sarawak Report further stated that the contents of the particular slide had indeed been modified, but the modification was effected by PSI’s own lawyers, who had inserted the name of a Jersey-based company owned by PSI itself.
Nota bene: Today is June 30, but not one single party has proved Sarawak Report wrong. Therefore, logical assumption points to the fact that Sarawak Report is correct.
Yesterday, on June 29, Sarawak Report reported that last weekend its lawyers had sent an email to PGI requesting the latter to:
1) confirm whether the quote attributed by NST to PGI was ‘a wholly accurate and unedited quotation given by a member of your staff; if it is not, please confirm the precise respects in which the quote is inaccurate and/or has been edited and provide full details of any omitted text’;
2) ‘provide the identity of the ‘expert from PGI’ who gave the quote referred to if such a quote was given’; and
3) ‘confirm whether you consider the wording set out above in blue to be a wholly accurate summary of your investigations; if it is not, please confirm the precise respects in which it is inaccurate’.
The quotes
The quotes (three in numbers and made by NST) rendered in blue by Sarawak Report’ s lawyers read as follows:
1) An international cyber-security firm, Protection Group International (PGI), was subsequently hired to conduct an in-depth investigation into the source of the data published on the Internet, as well as verify its authenticity. These investigations revealed clear evidence of the systematic theft of confidential company data by Justo prior to his departure from PetroSaudi.
Furthermore, the analysis also showed that the data was tampered with after it was stolen from PetroSaudi. It was believed that much of this tampered data subsequently appeared on Sarawak Report and served as the backbone of the blog's claims of impropriety against 1MDB;
2) Meanwhile, PGI said it will hand over further evidence to the authorities as its inquiry continues into how PetroSaudi's computer files were accessed and edited; and
3) PGI has confirmed that documents on the Sarawak Report have been creatively altered.
We learn that PGI has responded with what amounts to a no response. All PGI has said was that they could not say whether they made certain statements to NST without getting permission from PSI.
Which would lead us to assume that the statements PGI has previously made in this matter have been approved by PSI. Indeed. they could even have been drafted by PSI itself. And, naturally, PSI would say things to put itself in the clear.
And since PSI is among the parties under scrutiny in the 1MDB issue, we have to assume that the statements made by PGI are of no value whatsoever.
Logical assumption, no?
