Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has conceded Malaysia might have got mixed messages from New Zealand over the case of a diplomat accused of a sex crime in Wellington, Radio New Zealand reports.
Muhammad Rizalman bin Ismail, a defence attache at the Malaysian High Commission, was charged with assault with intent to rape in May this year but returned to Malaysia without going on trial after claiming diplomatic immunity.
The Government said it wanted Rizalman's immunity waived so he could be tried in New Zealand and that official correspondence with Malaysia made that position absolutely clear.
But McCully acknowledged on Tuesday evening that Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) officials also engaged “informal communications” in a manner that “would have been ambiguous”.