BANGKOK • Swiss national Xavier Andre Justo, who is embroiled in a financial scandal involving Malaysian politics, is set to sue the owner and top executive of Malaysia's The Edge Media Group and the founder of the Sarawak Report blog in a Singapore court, the national Bernama news agency said yesterday.

The case is to be heard at the Singapore High Court on Wednesday, the Malaysian news agency quoted a source as saying.

Justo is serving a three-year jail term in Thailand for attempting to blackmail his former employer PetroSaudi, a previous business partner of scandal-hit state investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The Singapore court case, Bernama said, revolves around data stolen by Justo from PetroSaudi, and handed over in the Republic to the executives of The Edge business newspapers and Sarawak Report.

Justo, who had quit PetroSaudi in 2011, demanded 2.5 million Swiss francs (S$3.5 million) from PetroSaudi in 2013 for not divulging information he held on the company.

When this failed, Justo had said he was promised US$2 million (S$2.8 million) - which he was never paid - for the stolen data by Malaysian businessman Tong Kooi Ong, owner of The Edge Media Group. Justo claimed he also met over the negotiations with Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown.

Justo was arrested in June on the southern Thai island of Koh Samui.