Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has lost a final bid to have his sodomy trial held in a lower court, ending a long wrangle over where the case should be heard, his lawyer said Thursday.

The Court of Appeal rejected the application and affirmed an earlier decision that the politically charged case should be heard in the High Court. The trial is due to start July 8.

Amid widespread doubts over the standards of Malaysia’s judiciary, Anwar’s supporters have said they fear authorities will be able to manipulate the case more easily in the High Court.

“The decision is not appealable. I am most disappointed with the decision today,” his lawyer Sankara Nair told AFP.

Anwar, 61, has repeatedly rejected sodomy allegations levelled by a 23-year-old former aide; the same charge that saw him jailed a decade ago, as a government conspiracy to derail his plan to topple the ruling coalition.
Read Anwar's Appeal Rejected, Trial On July 8

Popularity: 1% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, court of appeal, high court, sessions court, trial

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has asked a Malaysian court to throw out a sodomy charge against him, two weeks before the start of a trial that he maintains is politically motivated, his lawyer said Thursday.

The government has repeatedly denied Anwar’s claim that the charge was orchestrated to block him from leading a three-party opposition alliance that severely eroded the ruling coalition’s parliamentary majority in the March 2008 election.

Anwar submitted a petition to the High Court on Wednesday that said the case was a conspiracy concocted by his foes in the government, his lawyer Sankara Nair said in a statement.

In his application, Anwar asserted that a medical report dated July 13 last year by a government hospital found no evidence of anal penetration on his accuser.
Read Anwar Seeks To Block Sodomy Charge

Popularity: 1% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, charged, court, evidence, hospital, saiful bukhari, sodomy

Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday he is confident a court will find no evidence of sodomy when his case, which has inflamed political passions in Malaysia, resumes in July. Anwar, who spent six years in jail on a 1998 sodomy conviction that was ultimately overturned, faces a 20-year sentence if convicted on the new charge. Homosexuality is outlawed in Malaysia.

That would effectively end his political career which has seen him come close to mounting a challenge to the National Front government that has ruled Malaysia for the 51 years since independence from Britain.

Political tensions in Malaysia have been stoked by arrests of opposition supporters and when Anwar was tried in the late 1990s, tens of thousands of people took to the streets. “We’ve seen the conduct of the judiciary in the past, in the recent past as reasons to worry about that,” Anwar told a luncheon of foreign correspondents in Singapore, in reply to a question about the possibility of mass protests at his trial.
Read Anwar Confident Will Win Sodomy Case

Popularity: 5% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, high court, politics, sodomy

Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has won the first battle in his Sodomy II trial.

Today, the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court judge S M Komathy Suppiah ruled the certificate signed by the Attorney-General requesting the case be transferred to the High Court was invalid.

This will give a fillip to Anwar’s fight against the sodomy charge which he has denied and suggested is politically-motivated.

His case will now be heard in the Kuala Lumpur Criminal Sessions Court.

“This case raises a unique situation where it is evident that any involvement by the AG in this case would seriously undermine public confidence in the administration of criminal Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, case, court, high court, saiful bukhari, sessions court, sodomy

Sessions court judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah has lifted the media gag on the contents of nine “exhibits” referred to by the defence team in Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy II hearing.

Yesterday, Judge Komathy had allowed the prosecution’s application to issue a gag order to restrain the media from reporting about Abdul Gani Patail’s alleged involvement as shown in the contents of the exhibits.

Anwar’s lead counsel Sulaiman Abdullah had argued before Judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah that the three exhibits [two statements of claim respectively filed by Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan and the then investigation officer in the 1998 Anwar case Mat Zain Ibrahim and newspaper reports on that incident] had been read out in open court.
Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, case, court, high court, saiful bukhari, sessions court, sodomy

The Sessions Court here on Tuesday ruled that it had the discretion to hear submissions on the defence objection questioning the validity of the certificate produced by the prosecution to transfer Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy case to the High Court.

Judge S.M.Komathy Suppiah rejected the preliminary objection by the prosecution which contended that it was mandatory for the Sessions Court, under Section 418A (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, to transfer the case to the High Court once the transfer certificate had been issued by the prosecution.

She made the decision based on four cases, including the corruption case of former Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, case, court, high court, saiful bukhari, sessions court, sodomy

The Sodomy II trial of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been postponed yet again, after Sessions Court judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah ordered a two-week recess so she can decide on whether to allow the prosecution’s application to transfer the case to the High Court.

She is set to deliver the decision on October 7.

At the previous hearing on Sept 10, Senior Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Datuk Yusof Zainal Abiden, submitted a certificate of transfer to move the Sodomy II trial to the High Court.

Anwar’s defence team, led by Sulaiman Abdullah, objected to the transfer application on several grounds, primarily that the certificate was signed by Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, the Attorney-General (A-G) Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, court, sessions court, sodomy

Today Pakatan Rakyat leaders have submitted a letter to the Prime Minister requesting him to call an emergency session of Parliament to deliberate a motion of censure against the leadership of YAB Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi no later than Tuesday 23 September 2008.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, barisan nasional, emergency session, pakatan rakyat, parliament, statement, vote

Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wants Parliament to convene by Sept 23 for him to table a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

He said that a letter signed by him, the DAP’s Lim Kit Siang and Pas president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, representing the Pakatan Rakyat alliance, had been sent to the PM to request him to convene Parliament by next Tuesday.

“We have told him we have the numbers. If he wants the details and doesn’t believe me, then convene the emergency sitting,” he told reporters at PKR headquarters here today.

He insisted it was critical for the PM to respond as “it is important to think of the nation and not themselves. They are a minority government, the majority is with us.
Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: anwar ibrahim, barisan nasional, house session, pakatan rakyat, parliament