Dismissing the claim by Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Loke Siew Fook, and Mohamad Sabu that they had no opportunity to state their stance on the matter, he said he was embarrassed to have had them in his Cabinet.

“The leaked Cabinet meeting minutes show that their joint statement isn’t true, they’re lying. I feel embarrassed that they used to be in my Cabinet,” he said, according to Sinar Harian.

PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan previously said the meeting minutes showed that they had all agreed to drop the applications to review and interpret the 2008 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Batu Puteh.

The Kota Bharu MP said the minutes were anonymously sent to him.

The PH trio said last week that during the Cabinet meeting in 2018, they were only informed of Mahathir’s decision not to proceed with the applications.

They claimed there was no room for any decision-making as Mahathir had already made the decision in writing, referring to a letter the then prime minister had sent to the solicitor-general on the matter.

Mahathir however contended that they did not speak against the decision to drop the legal applications when the matter was brought up in the meeting.

A royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks, and South Ledge previously revealed that Mahathir had written to the solicitor-general on May 21, 2018, stating that the ICJ applications “need not be continued”.

The solicitor-general then informed Singapore that Malaysia would be dropping both legal applications.

The RCI said Singapore was informed of this at 9am on May 23, 2018. The Cabinet only met at 9.30am that day and discussed the issue later in the meeting under “other matters”.