The Research Division of the Prime Minister's Department (Malay: Bahagian Penyelidikan Jabatan Perdana Menteri) is an agency within the MalaysianPrime Minister's Department.[3] According to a leaked US diplomatic cable dating back to 2006, the Research Division is actually the public name for the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation (MEIO), the country's main foreign intelligence agency.[4]
As Malaysia's national security covert intelligence agency, MEIO is estimated to have between 300 and 1000 agents, officers, and operatives around the world, with approximately half stationed abroad. Its offices are located in Putrajaya and Jalan Bellamy in Kuala Lumpur. [1][5]
The Research Division was established during the 1960s as part of Malaysia's national security covert intelligence agency.[1] Muhammad Hatta, the Secretary of the Malaysian National Security Council, was known to have served as MEIO's Director General from 2002 to 2005.[citation needed] It was also known to have helped the Malaysian Special Branch in combating the Malayan Communist Party.[6] According to leaked cables, the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation also covertly supported the secessionist groups in Mindanao. More recently, MEIO reportedly helped to combat the Islamic State.[1][7]
Post–2018 Malaysian general election
According to reports by several Malaysian news media including The Star, The Sun, and the news blog Malaysia Today in May 2018, the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation had 300 personnel, operated as a spy agency, and reported directly to former Prime MinisterNajib Tun Razak. The organization was allegedly used to monitor government critics at home and abroad. Following the 2018 Malaysian general election, members of the Royal Malaysia Police's Commercial Crime Division searched the home of a female individual, who was reported to be the head of the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation, for documents that Najib had given her two days before the 2018 election. The Police also searched two buildings belonging to the agency.[8][9][10]
In late July 2018, a letter from MEIO's Director-General Hasanah Abu Hamid dating back to 4 May 2018 was leaked to the media. The letter was reportedly addressed to Gina Haspel, the designated Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and appealed for the Trump Administration to support Najib's administration even in the event that Barisan Nasional won by a simple majority or just one seat.[11] In response, the Finance MinisterLim Guan Eng called for an investigation into allegations that the Research Division had written to the CIA, describing the letter as an attempt to solicit foreign intervention.[12]
Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Najib denied having any knowledge of the Research Division's letter, claiming that it was a government secret not meant for public eyes.[13] During a press conference on 31 July, Hasanah's lawyer Datuk Shaharudin Ali confirmed that the letter was genuine and asserted that the letter between MEIO and the CIA was part of the work of intelligence gathering and national security.[14] The former Director Hasanah lodged a police report on the grounds that the letter should not have been leaked for national security reasons.[15][16] On 6 August 2018, Ab Jalil Backer, the leader of a group called Angkatan Karyawan Nasionalis, claimed that the CIA had leaked MEIO's letter and also alleged that the US spy agency had been colluding with Pakatan Harapan.[17]
In May 2018, amid changes in the government under the Seventh Mahathir cabinet, discussions arose regarding the potential abolition of the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation (MEIO), as reported by a news article.[18] The Division's Director-General until the 2018 Malaysian general election was Datuk Hasanah Abdul Hamid.[1][7]
Following the election, on 22 August 2018, Ahmad Shublee Othman was appointed as the new Director of MEIO.[19]
In late August 2018, former MEIO director-general Hasanah was remanded in police custody over alleged misappropriation of election funds during the 2018 general election.[20] In April 2021, Hasanah was granted a "discharge not amounting to an acquittal" in a trial involving misuse of funds from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) sovereign fund.[21][22]
In June 2022, Hasanah applied to have her "discharge not amounting to an acquittal" converted to a full acquittal, which was granted on 10 August 2022 by Judicial Commissioner Roz Mawar Rozain.[23]
Present day
Recent developments indicate MEIO's revival under new leadership following the restructuring. The research division, which functioned as a front for an intelligence agency under the previous Barisan Nasional government, will not be disbanded but given new direction under a new chief, as stated by high-placed sources.[24]
Functions
The Research Division of the Prime Minister's Department is tasked with helping to improve national security and well-being, strengthen national sovereignty, and maintain the country's international reputation.[25]
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is the domestic intelligence and national security agency of the Commonwealth of Australia, responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically motivated violence, terrorism and attacks on the national defence system. ASIO is a primary entity of the Australian Intelligence Community.
The Australian Secret Intelligence Service is the foreign intelligence agency of the Commonwealth of Australia, responsible for gathering, processing, and analysing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence. The service was formed in 1952, however its existence remained secret within much of the government and to the public until 1972. ASIS is a primary entity of the Australian Intelligence Community.
The Office of National Assessments (ONA) was an Australian statutory intelligence agency established by the Office of National Assessments Act 1977 as an independent statutory body directly accountable to the Prime Minister of Australia as a portfolio agency of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. ONA provided all-source assessments on international political, strategic and economic developments to the Prime Minister and the National Security Committee of Cabinet. ONA also played a coordination role in the Australian Intelligence Community through evaluating foreign intelligence products, convening the National Intelligence Coordination Committee, and developing relationships with intelligence agencies around the world.
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and intelligence in British, Commonwealth, Irish, and other police forces. A Special Branch unit acquires and develops intelligence, usually of a political or sensitive nature, and conducts investigations to protect the State from perceived threats of subversion, particularly terrorism and other extremist political activity.
Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak is a Malaysian politician who served as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia from 2009 to 2018. In 2020, he was convicted of corruption in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, one of the largest money-laundering and embezzlement scandals in history. He is the son of former prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein. Najib Razak was the chairman of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition from April 2009 to May 2018 and the president of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) from November 2008 to May 2018, which had maintained control of Malaysia's government with a parliamentary majority for more than sixty years until the coalition's defeat in the 2018 general election.
The Directorate-General for External Security is France's foreign intelligence agency, equivalent to the British MI6 and the American CIA, established on 2 April 1982. The DGSE safeguards French national security through intelligence gathering and conducting paramilitary and counterintelligence operations abroad, as well as economic espionage. It is headquartered in the 20th arrondissement of Paris.
The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is the public-service department of New Zealand charged with promoting New Zealand's national security by collecting and analysing information of an intelligence nature. The GCSB is considered to be New Zealand's most powerful intelligence agency, and has been alleged to have conducted more espionage and data collection than the country's primary intelligence agency, the less funded NZSIS. This has at times proven controversial, although the GCSB does not have the baggage of criticism attached to it for a perceived failure to be effective like the NZSIS does. The GCSB is considered an equivalent of GCHQ in the United Kingdom or the NSA in the United States.
The Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) is the foreign intelligence agency of India. The agency's primary function is gathering foreign intelligence, counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, advising Indian policymakers, and advancing India's foreign strategic interests. It is also involved in the security of India's nuclear programme.
The Inter-Services Intelligence is the largest and best-known component of the Pakistani intelligence community. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant to Pakistan's national security. The ISI reports to its director-general and is primarily focused on providing intelligence to the Pakistani government.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime for those with access to classified information, or those who systematically seek to identify and expose covert agents and have reason to believe that it will harm the foreign intelligence activities of the U.S., to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in or recently in certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency, unless the United States has publicly acknowledged or revealed the relationship.
The Internal Security Department or ISD is the domestic intelligence, counter-espionage and security agency of Singapore under the purview of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). It is tasked to confront and address security threats ranging from subversion or sedition, spying or espionage, foreign influence, domestic or international terrorism, political or religious extremism, and fraud against the state.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), known informally as the Agency, metonymously as Langley and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.
Rameshwar Nath Kao was an Indian spymaster and the first chief of India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) from its founding in 1968 to 1977. Kao was one of India's foremost intelligence officers, and helped build R&AW.
The Security and Intelligence Division (SID) is the foreign intelligence service of Singapore under the purview of the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), tasked to gather, process, and analyse information from around the world that concerns the national security and national interests of Singapore.
Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa, a Mongolian national, was a murder victim who was either murdered by PETN and RDX explosives or was somehow killed first and her remains destroyed with explosives on 18 October 2006 in a deserted area in Shah Alam, Malaysia. Her murder case is significant in contemporary Malaysian politics due to the alleged involvement of persons close to the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak.
There is a long history of close cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom intelligence services; see Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for World War II and subsequent relationships. There are permanent liaison officers of each country in major intelligence agencies of the other, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Secret Intelligence Service ("MI6"), FBI and the Security Service (MI5), and National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). From 1943 to 2017, the Open Source Enterprise, a division of the CIA, was run out of Caversham Park in Reading, Berkshire. American officials worked closely with their British counterparts to monitor foreign TV and radio broadcasts, as well as online information.
Anwar bin Ibrahim is a Malaysian politician who is the 10th and current Prime Minister of Malaysia since 2022. He served as the 12th and 16th Leader of the Opposition from 2008 to 2015, and again from 2020 to 2022. He has been the chairman of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition since 2020, the second President of the People's Justice Party (PKR) since 2018 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tambun since November 2022. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister and in many other Cabinet positions in the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad from 1982 to his removal in 1998.
The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, popularly known as Mossad, is the national intelligence agency of the State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman and Shin Bet.
Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Abdul Gani bin Patail is a Malaysian prosecutor. He was the Attorney General of Malaysia from 2002 to 2015, the first from Sabah to hold the position.
STATEROOM is the code name of a highly secretive signals intelligence collection program involving the interception of international radio, telecommunications and Internet traffic. It is operated out of the diplomatic missions of the signatories to the UKUSA Agreement and the members of the ECHELON network including Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
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