Seow, who completed his secondary school education at Pay Fong High School, Malacca in 2005, had apparently said that he held qualifications to be a trauma surgeon, emergency physician and psychologist.

However, Sin Chew wrote to the universities and all of them replied saying they had no record of Seow.

Earlier this year, Seow granted interviews to various media to talk about his experience as a military doctor serving in Third World countries.

During those interviews, Seow said he began serving in war-torn countries even before he turned 25.

Seow had also published a book titled To Serve With Love which documented his journey.

Reporters from the Chinese dailies have also interviewed Seow's father, who is a traditional Chinese medical practitioner in Malacca, to verify his son's academic qualifications.

China Press said the father had defended his son, questioning people's motive in bringing up the matter.

According to Nanyang Siang Pau, the father did not disclose whether his son had the medical qualifications except to say that his son would begin his studies in cardiology in England in December.

Seow, who is said to be in Somalia now, has told Sin Chew in an e-mail that he would be coming back to Malaysia next month to reply all allegations about him.

Other News & Views is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.