The government has rejected pleas to allow the return of exiled former communist chief Chin Peng, who led a bloody 12-year insurgency half a century ago.

Chin Peng lost his final legal appeal to return to Malaysia last month, but several groups including members of the ruling coalition have urged the government to allow the 85-year-old to return on humanitarian grounds.

chin peng"Chin Peng and his commandos who killed many people in the past certainly do not deserve any consideration from us," Information Minister Rais Yatim told state media.

"The communists abused this country and we had been shackled through killings and terrible actions committed by them," he added.

Chin Peng, the one-time boss of the outlawed Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), left Malaysia in 1961 after the uprising and has been in exile since. His lawyer said he is currently living in Thailand.

Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said his return would be an insult to the families of nearly 50,000 British colonial and government troops who died during the "Malayan Emergency".

"Allowing former CPM leaders to return will hurt those who fought against them and also the next-of-kin of those who died during the Emergency. It is a matter of patriotism," he said according to the state Bernama news agency.

The death toll from the conflict is disputed. Ahmad Zahid said 50,000 police, soldiers and irregulars died, his aide confirmed.

However, many historians say less than 2,000 colonial troops and Malaysian forces perished, along with up to 7,000 communist fighters.

The CPM signed a peace agreement with the Malaysian government in 1989 that allowed several high-ranking communist leaders to return.

War hero turned villian

Chin Peng's lawyer Darshan Singh said he was blocked on the grounds he was still linked to a banned organisation with a "history of perpetrating terrorism" in the country, and because of a dispute over his nationality.

"How can they say he is not Malaysian when his children, sisters and brothers are all citizens," Singh told AFP.

Teng Hock Nan, a senior leader in the Gerakan party, which is a member of the ruling coalition, has appealed for the government to allow the ageing former guerrilla fighter to return.

Born Ong Boon Hua in Perak in 1923, Chin Peng won the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and two medals for helping the British fight the Japanese in Malaya during World War II.

He later led the communist party, backed by China, in a guerrilla campaign against the British colonial and Malaysian governments which ran between 1948 and 1960.