Barry Wain, the author of a controversial biography of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had contemplated suing the Malaysian government when it delayed the sale of the book two years ago.

According to Wain, a former editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal , he obtained legal advice that grounds might exist to serve Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein with a legal notice under the Specific Relief Act 1950 to release the book within a week.

In November 2009, a shipment of ‘Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times' was held back in Port Klang for a number of months.

NONE "If the minister failed to act, an application would be made to the courts, which presumably would be hard-pressed to rule that ‘Malaysian Maverick' was undesirable," said Wain, who revealed his intention to take legal action in a new chapter in the second edition of the book, which has just gone on sale in Malaysia.

Hishammuddin had told Parliament that the book "was found to have insulted the national leadership and the institution of Malay rulers".

The government eventually released the book after five months of scrutiny by the Home Ministry and as such, no legal action was taken by Wain.

The book became a best-seller in both Malaysia and Singapore, hitting the No 1 spot in both countries and being reprinted in hard cover nine times within seven months.

The second edition, which is in paperback with a new cover and updated text, comments on Mahathir's reaction to the first edition of the book, his continuing role in Malaysian politics, and the publication of his own memoirs last year.

Wain writes that Mahathir, while commenting four times on the book in his Chedet blog , denied but failed to rebut the allegation that his administration squandered RM100 billion on four financial scandals.

He also says that Mahathir sidestepped the documented claim that Malaysian taxpayers subsidised the construction of Umno's 40-storey headquarters to the tune of tens of millions of ringgit.

Dr M damages his own legacy

In Wain's judgment, Mahathir has damaged his own legacy in retirement by identifying himself with Perkasa, the extremist Malay rights group in which he is a patron.

NONE As for Mahathir's memoirs, ‘A Doctor in the House', Wain said the book contains too many omissions and factual errors to be considered reliable.

In a withering critique of Malaysia's attempted censorship of ‘Malaysian Maverick', Wain writes that the action "revealed a modern nation with a primitive attitude to information - and an opaque bureaucratic system that has quietly consigned hundreds of books to obscurity".

Wain has been invited to speak at the newly launched Foreign Correspondent Club of Malaysia (FCCM) in Kuala Lumpur on April 20.

The Australian journalist, now a writer-in-residence at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, has been living in Asia for nearly 40 years.

Wain has written a number of books, including ‘The Refused', an account of the refugee outflow from Indochina after the Vietnam War.

The second edition of ‘Malaysian Maverick' is on sale at RM65.90.