00:00Dr Mahathir Mohamad may have misconstrued legal advice when he decided to drop a case
00:07on Malaysia's sovereignty over three disputed rocky islets off the streets of Singapore.
00:13According to a new book by Roman Bose, Najib Razak's former aide, documents believed that
00:18international consultant Brendan Plante believed Mahathir had prejudged the matter and misconstrued
00:23his point about the lack of a silver bullet in the sovereignty case.
00:27The case brought to the International Court of Justice was to resolve a dispute between
00:31Malaysia and Singapore on sovereignty over Pulau Batu Putih, Batuan Tengah and Tuger Selatan.
00:39A Royal Commission of Inquiry is investigating why the government at the time dropped the
00:44Batu Putih case, allowing Singapore to claim the islet.
00:48Bose wrote that the documents showed Plante believed that although Malaysia had unearthed
00:52new evidence to support the review, there was no single piece of evidence that was a
00:56silver bullet.
00:57However, Plante thought Mahathir misunderstood this remark and believed the applications
01:02had no chance of success.
01:04Bose said Plante also felt Mahathir had already closed his mind to the possibility of proceeding
01:09with the applications.
01:11The former Prime Minister also did not realise that there were two separate applications.
01:16One was the review of the judgement, while the other was the interpretation of the judgement's
01:20conclusion on Tuger Selatan, he said.
01:24Bose said lawyers suggested that the issue of sovereignty over South Lech was more likely
01:28to favour Malaysia.
01:29However, he could not determine the authenticity of the documents and urged Putrajaya to verify
01:34them.
01:36He also said the misconstruction by Mahathir occurred as the latter did not seek the opinion
01:40or advice of senior officials from the Attorney General's Chambers or the Foreign Ministry.
01:46Bose's new book, Shattered Homes, is now on sale.
01:49For more information, check the description below.
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