Ageing former communist guerilla leader Chin Peng is confident of winning a legal battle to allow him to return home to Malaysia after being in exile for 44 years, his lawyer said today.

But the government reiterated over the weekend they would seek to bar Chin Peng, ex-secretary-general of the outlawed Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), to return to the country.

Chin Peng, 81, who is now living in Thailand, on Friday filed an application in a final desperate bid to return to Malaysia, nearly two years after the government rejected his request to return to visit his ancestral graves and launch his autobiography.

Counsel Darshan Singh Khaira said he submitted an application earlier today seeking an order to grant Chin Peng and his followers temporary travel documents to enter the country to attend a court hearing in northern Penang state.

"Based on the treaty alone, there is no dispute to his rights and that of his followers to return, there is no way Chin Peng can lose. Therefore, he is confident that the court should rule in his favour," he told AFP .

Black history

But Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar stressed the government, which barred Chin Peng from returning in 2003 on grounds he was still linked to a banned organisation with a "history of perpetrating terrorism" in the country, would not change its stance.

"The government will not give any room for Chin Peng to return. We don't want to be seen as being soft to the activities of the communists," Noh was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency late Sunday.

Darshan said the government's decision breached agreements it made in peace accords it signed in December 1989 with the CPM. But he said his client remained unfazed, as the government would have to abide by the court decision.

No date has yet been set for the court hearing.