The United Nations Security Council Afghan Sanctions Committee has withdrawn from its second report an offending annex which indirectly linked several Malaysian organisations, including the Barisan Nasional, to terror network al-Qaeda.

In a Dec 27 letter published on the UN's website, UN Sanctions Committee chairperson Alfonso Valdivieso accepted a request by the committee's monitoring group chairperson Michael Chandler to have the annex removed.

"I should be grateful if the present letter and (Chandler's letter of request) could be brought to the attention of the members of the Council and issued as a document of the Council," said Valdivieso whose letter has been made available on the UN website.

The request for the withdrawal of the annex had arose after the Malaysian government objected to the inclusion of a chart in the monitoring group's second report in which eight organisations were linked directly to al-Qaeda via their alleged connection with southern Philippines separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Al-Qaeda helmed by Osama bin Laden was said to have masterminded and executed the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

No longer part of report

In his letter to Valdivieso, Chandler said the annex (left)should be removed from the second report as it might cause "misunderstanding".

"Upon further review, the monitoring group now considers that certain elements in annex IV of that report might be subject to misinterpretation.

"In order to avoid further misunderstanding, the group requests that this annex no longer be regarded as included in the report," said Chandler in a Dec 19 letter to Valdivieso which has also been published on the UN website.

In addition, Chandler also recommended that the annex be deleted from the online version of the second report posted on the UN website.

A check at the website revealed that the chart had been replaced with a one-line referral to Valdivieso's letter.

Meanwhile, a Foreign Affairs Ministry official confirmed that the government had been informed of the approval for the withdrawal of the offensive annex late last year but was waiting for its removal before making any announcement.

Remove from archives

However, the official who declined to be identified said the ministry is still working towards having the document removed from the UN's Official Document System the organisation's online archives.

"We are still pursuing to take it out from the archives. There are still technical problems to take it out of the archives. (The UN sanctions committee) will have to consider the legal implications," the official said.

Governments leaders, including the prime minister and his deputy, have been calling upon the UN to remove the offending chart with immediate effect.

Based on regular checks at the UN website, it was discovered that the actual removal of the chart from the online version of the report took place only over the past two days.

The publication of the second report of the monitoring group in September last year caused outrage in Malaysia prompting the government to issue several protests via its Permanent Representative to the UN, Hasmy Agam.

Aside from BN, other organisations listed in the chart were PAS, the Movement of Islamic Unity (APU), the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (Abim), the Islamic Front of Malaysia (IFM), the Front Malaysian Islamic Council (FMIC), the Indian Muslim Congress of Malaysia (Kimma) and the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (MIYM).