The designer of a website detailing corrupt dealings between Malaysian police officers - including a former district police chief - and a wanted criminal, claimed that he set up the site upon the instruction of two unidentified men he met in India.

Rajeev Kumar, managing director of the Indian-based Hubnet Solution, said the site dedicated to Michael Soosai - who is said to have faked his death two years ago - was set up after he was met earlier last month by a "Chinese looking man and a 6ft 5in heavy man with dark complexion".

"The two met us and requested us to make the site. Whatever scanned documentation is in there, we simply do not know what it means as we don't know that particular language (Malay)," he added when contacted at his office, located in Patna, a town in the northeast Indian province of Bihar.

The contents of the website is primarily in English with a number of scanned copies of police reports and statements which are in Malay. It details the influence which Soosai - who is alleged to have been involved in 17 criminal matters - had on the police force.

Rajeev said he did not pay attention to the site's content and was merely doing his job as a designer of web pages.

He then contracted a friend's company, Total Internet Solutions based in New Delhi, to host the site.

"When they first told me about the site, they said the name was Malaysia-Singapore something. It was only later they told me it was called michael-soosai. Anyway, I made the site and was paid the next day," he said.

The designer, who was apparently shaken by the controversy, added that he did not know Soosai and was not aware that he was a wanted criminal.

He said he only understood the seriousness of the issue a few days after the site was up when he was informed on the implications of its content by someone else.

A search showed that the website's URL (Uniform Resource Locator - the global address of websites in the Internet) is registered on June 7 under Rajeev's name but the embattled website designer denied that he 'owned' the domain.

Allegations of corruption

The site, titled 'A Soul Resting in Peace', alleges a friendship between top police officers and Soosai.

This connection is said to have served as protection to Soosai from numerous harassment and intimidation reports against him.

The police had set up a task force to locate Soosai, now deemed a fugitive, which was headed by federal deputy CID director Mokthar Hassan.

Some of the top cops named in the Soosai website are incidentally the same men tasked to track the fugitive down.

Following the allegations, another task force spearhead by Federal Narcotics Department deputy director Ismail Omar was set up to investigate the website allegations.

Meanwhile, Rajeev said that he has not been contacted by the duo since he met them prior to uploading the site on June 6.

Asked why the site was still available, he said that it cannot be removed now and also because he was merely fulfilling his contractual duties as he was paid over US$500 (RM1,900) for the service.