Malaysia ex-communist chief loses bid to return home

KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 (Reuters) An ageing communist guerrilla who led a revolt that convulsed Malaysia for three decades has suffered a setback in a two-year legal battle to return home, his lawyer said today, but vowed to fight the judgment.

Chin Peng, 83, led a guerrilla campaign against Japanese, British colonial, Malaysian and Thai forces over three decades, from the 1940s until well into the 1970s, when it was finally crushed. Only in 1989 was a formal peace treaty signed.

Chin Peng, who now lives in Thailand, became the most wanted man in the British Empire in 1948, at the age of 23, soon after being named secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya.

Memories of the communists' revolt are still a sensitive topic in multi-racial Malaysia, prompting the government to ban the 2006 film, ''The Last Communist'', which was inspired by Chin Peng's early life and legacy.

Drawn by memories of his parents, who are buried in Malaysia, the ageing former revolutionary now wants to return home, but a Malaysian High Court today gave him 14 days to submit documents proving he was born in the country.

However Chin Peng's position is that the documents should be issued by the government.

''This is the end of the road in the high court,'' his lawyer Darshan Singh Khaira told Reuters. ''But we must carry it to the Court of Appeal. I will file a petition in the Appeal Court tomorrow.'' In his autobiography, Chin Peng: My Side of History, the former guerrilla paints a picture of a 12-year anti-colonial war he says he waged against British and Commonwealth forces in the jungles of what was then called Malaya.

In his petition to a high court in the northern state of Penang, he said the Malaysian government had failed to abide by the treaty ending the insurgency when it banned him and several former colleagues from returning home.

Darshan Singh said his client had several times asked the government for permission to return, but his requests had been rejected.

Malaysia's prime minister has earlier said the government had decided in October 2003 not to allow Chin Peng to step on Malaysian soil because of his links to an outlawed group once involved in terror acts.

REUTERS ARB BST1717