PAS today pledged full cooperation with the authorities to investigate its acting president Abdul Hadi Awang's presence at a meeting purportedly attended by Islamic radicals, and suggested the case be brought to court as soon as possible.

Party secretary-general Nasharudin Mat Isa said RTM and TV3 would be welcomed to broadcast live the questioning of Hadi so that Malaysians would truly understand the issue.

He stressed that Hadi was among the guests invited to speak at a conference which was attended by Indonesian academics and government leaders.

"The keynote address speaker was their defence minister then. Other guests included the deputy speaker of Parliament M Fatwa," said Nasharudin after a four-hour central working committee meeting at the party headquarters.

Wide coverage

He said Hadi, who was present at the conference in his capacity as the Menteri Besar of Terengganu, had notified Malaysia's foreign affairs ministry prior to his visit to Indonesia.

"His visit was given wide coverage in Indonesia and he even appeared o­n the local television in a forum for about an hour," Nasharudin said, adding that there was nothing secret about the conference.

He warned Umno not to manipulate the local media to portray PAS leaders as terrorists or risk being rejected by Malaysians the same way they despised the United States for planning a military strike against Iraq.

Nasharudin also described the Star daily which sparked off the controversy by linking Hadi to Indonesian Islamic radicals in a report last week as "placing journalistic professionalism at the lowest, most unethical, insulting, and embarrassing level".

"It showed that the writers were anti-Islam and were pursuing their malicious agenda by associating the conference with those who are now detained by the Indonesian authorities," said Nasharudin.

He said the party is consulting its lawyers o­n whether it should take those responsible for the report to court.

In the report published last Friday, Hadi was said to have "made the acquaintance of" the Islamic radicals in Makassar, South Sulawesi at a three-day meeting there.

Among the radicals named by the report were Abu Bakar Basyir, an Indonesian cleric detained in Jakarta since last October's Bali bombing, and Agus Dwikarna, leader of the militant Laskar Jundullah who is now jailed in Philippines for possession of explosives and several bombings.

Experience o­n Islamic laws

However, Hadi had said that he was invited by Universiti Hassanuddin and several NGOs to speak about the experience of Terengganu and Kelantan in implementing Islamic administration and laws.

He had also denied that he was linked to any radical or militant group either in Malaysia or abroad.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said the authorities will investigate the matter in response to a call by the Umno Youth to do so.

Meanwhile, speaking at the same press conference this afternoon, PAS Youth chief Mahfuz Omar urged the police to investigate Mahathir's link to communist movements as the premier had received Cuban President Fidel Castro in Malaysia two years ago.

"I also have reasons to suspect that Umno is linked to communism because they had delegates from the Communist Party of China at their annual general assembly last year," he said.