A former navy man involved in the research of the Pulau Batu Puteh territorial dispute has rubbished claims of the island was lost due to incompetence or corruption.

Instead, retired rear-admiral K Thanabalasingam in a comment piece in the New Straits Times today said that the case was lost by default due to the failures of past leaders in exercising sovereignty over the island.

Thanabalasingam pointed to several historical circumstances which caused the Malaysian team at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to fight a losing battle against Singapore.

Among them, he noted, was a 1953 letter by the then acting Johor state secretary who said Johor did not claim ownership of Pulau Batu Puteh when Singapore submitted an official query to the state.

Furthermore, he said, Malaysia did not ask Singapore to stop flying its flag there, failed to react to Singapore's probe of shipwrecks in that area, stood by Singapore's insistence that activities on the island receive its approval, and failed to object to Singapore's installation of military communications there.

"Perhaps our leaders in the euphoria of Independence failed to see te strategic significance of the rock with the lighthouse," he quipped.

He added that Malaysia also failed to respond when Singapore declared its intention to claim the island and that even the national maps showed the island to be part of Singapore.

'Absurd accusations'

"Under the above circumstances, I fail to see how the accusations that the Malaysian team did not prepare its case thoroughly - or worse, that anyone was bribed - can make any sense to me.

"To me, the accusations are absurd or ludicrous," he said.

Thanabalasingam claimed he was part of the team which prepared the Pulau Batu Puteh case before it was taken up at the ICJ.

However, his name does not appear as part of the Malaysian team in the ICJ judgment on the matter.

It was reported on Nov 6 last year that former Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigations Department chief Mat Zain Ibrahim had claimed the Malaysian team allegedly submitted an altered photograph on the position of Pulau Batu Puteh from a blog to the ICJ, which damaged the team's credibility.

Two days later, the Johor palace announced that it had revoked the datukship of former Johor State Economic Planning Unit director Hamsan Saringat - who is listed as part of the ICJ team on the territorial dispute - but provided no reason for the action.

It is noted that Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri has denied in Parliament that attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail was involved in the alleged evidence fabrication.

"The allegation is baseless and is made without referring to concrete facts,” she stressed.