PARLIAMENT All envoys sent overseas now need to go through a pre-posting orientation course before they leave, Deputy Foreign Minister Reezal Merican Naina Merican said today.

This is to prevent a recurrence of the incident which saw former Malaysian attaché to New Zealand, Muhammad Rizalman Ismail, being charged in court there with sexual assault.

"Now we have something called a pre-posting orientation programme for which officers from Wisma Putra and all its umbrella bodies will have to go through.

"We had the incident of Rizalman in New Zealand and one or two more other issues. We took a lesson from there and we commenced the pre-posting orientation as an early preventionary measure," he told Dewan Rakyat today.

He, however, did not go into the details of the programme or name the other similar incidents which he made reference to.

Reezal said this when winding up Budget 2016 debate at the committee stage. He was responding to a lawmaker who was worried about the English proficiency of envoys and diplomats sent overseas.

Reezal, who was appointed to his post in July, said he had never come across any envoys who spoke poor English.

He said all officers sent overseas also needed to take an English course which was sponsored by the government and the UN.

They will also take classes in political literacy to enable them to better know the countries they will be posted to, said Reezal who is also Kepala Batas parliamentarian.

Alternative charge

Rizalman, 39, created a diplomatic flap when he was charged in May last year.

Instead of having him remain in New Zealand to face the charges, Malaysian authorities allowed him to return home to be with his family.

News of him missing from New Zealand created an uproar and the incident was hotly debated in the New Zealand Parliament which in turn put NZ Prime Minister John Key uncomfortably in the spotlight.

Rizalman was then handed back to New Zealand authorities by two Malaysian military officers who accompanied him on a flight from Kuala Lumpur last October.

Following that he was charged again on May 26 during which he claimed trial at the Wellington High Court to a new alternative charge of indecently assaulting a woman in her bedroom while not wearing his lower clothing.