Sometime over the next few days, a court in Kuala Lumpur will put the finishing touches to an agreement that allows Tajudin Ramli, the former head of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), not only to walk away from charges that he had allegedly looted the airline of tens of millions of ringgit but with an RM580 million out-of-court settlement from the government.

It appears to be a settlement that the government would rather keep to itself.

At the heart of the agreement with Tajudin is a convoluted story that began as long ago as the 1980s when Malaysia's central bank, Bank Negara, at the urging of then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, began speculating aggressively in global foreign exchange markets, at one time running up exposure rumoured to be in the region of RM270 billion - three times the country's gross domestic product and more than five times its foreign reserves at the time...