Former inspector-general of police Abdul Rahim Noor said it is "irrelevant" to link his appointment as the Southern Thailand peace process facilitator to Anwar Ibrahim's black-eye incident in 1998.

Saying that "what is past, is past", he believed the government had chosen him based on his role in the peace talks with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) in 1989.

The peace talks saw CPM sign a peace deal with Malaysia and the Thai government known as the Hat Yai Treaty, after more than 40 years of insurgency...