ISA FOCUS Before second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein died on Jan 14, 1976, Abdullah Ahmad was his young, ambitious and powerful political secretary.

But seven months after the death of his boss, Abdullah was sleeping on a concrete floor, in a cell at the police Special Branch's holding centre near the Police Depot in Kuala Lumpur. Later, Abdullah was transferred to the Kamunting Detention Camp in Perak.

Widely known as 'Dollah Kok Lanas', he had been detained under the Internal Security Act, accused of being a "communist".

Had it not been for his five years of detention, he joked during an interview with Malaysiakini at his house last week, he "could have become the prime minister or at least a DPM or senior minister, as some people had thought"...