Justo to sue trio he gave data to in Singapore

Swiss national Xavier Andre Justo, now serving a three-year jail term here for trying to blackmail his former employer PetroSaudi International, is to sue the owner of The Edge Media Group and its top executive as well as the founder of Sarawak Report in the High Court in Singapore.

Justo wants Toong Kooi Ong and Group CEO and Publisher of The Edge Communications Sdn Bhd, Ho Kay Tat, and Sarawak Report founder-editor, Clare Rewcastle-Brown, to return the data that he had handed them, according to a source familiar with the case.

The source told Bernama the lawsuit is scheduled to be heard at the High Court in Singapore on Nov 4.

He said the lawsuit was brought to Singapore as the data, which Justo had stolen from PetroSaudi, was handed to them there.

Justo had admitted to stealing 90 gigabytes of data, including emails and documents, from PetroSaudi as part of an attempted blackmail.

When the blackmail failed, he handed the data to Toong and Brown who are alleged to have offered about US$2 million, but he was arrested on June 22 on the island of Koh Samui in southern Thailand before he could receive any payment.

Justo applied for bail on Monday but his application was rejected by the court. He is expected to make a fresh bail application next week.

In Kuala Lumpur, lawyer Kevin Joshua said Justo had no right to sue since he has "no title to the property" to make any claim.

"It's like a robber suing a goldsmith to whom he sold stolen jewellery," said the partner in Kevin and Co.

"While he may have a right to initiate a suit the question is whether it can be sustained, and that depends on what is pleaded."