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.
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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.
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The Court of Appeal yesterday returned a unanimous decision that Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Zambry Abd Kadir is the rightful Perak mentri besar, ruling that his Pakatan Rakyat rival Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddinn had ceased to command the majority in the Perak state assembly.

The judges also ruled that the Sultan was right in appointing Zambry the MB and that there was no need for a vote of no confidence in the House against Nizar.

The three-member Bench comprising Justices Md Raus Shariff, Zainun Ali and Ahmad Maarop delivered judgment after hearing submissions from both parties a day earlier.

“It is clear the respondent (the state opposition leader) had ceased to command confidence of the Perak state assembly. The Sultan was right to appoint Zambry,” Md Raus said.

However, the Court of Appeal decision is not expected to bring an end to the crisis in Perak as the parties can still appeal to the Federal Court.
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Malaysia’s National Front government, armed with a court order, took control of Perak state again on Tuesday in a development that will likely deepen political divisions in the country.

An appeals court decision on Tuesday delayed the handover of power to the national opposition after they won the right on Monday in the High Court to retake control of the state which they won at the 2008 elections.

After Tuesday’s decision, riot police sealed off the assembly building in the state capital of Ipoh, where 90 people were arrested in anti-government protests last week.

The crisis in peninsular Malaysia’s second largest state began when the National Front government took control of the state government in February through defections orchestrated by Najib Razak before he became premier in April.
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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 »

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Political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda was today acquitted by the High Court here of abetting in the murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 32, and Corporal Sirul Azha Umar, 37, who are members of the police Special Action Force (UTK), were, however, ordered to enter their defence to the charge of murder.

The prosecution is expected to file an appeal against Razak’s acquittal.

Altantuya was allegedly shot before her body was blown up with explosives two years ago.

Azilah and Sirul are jointly charged with murdering Altantuya, 28, at a location in Mukim Bukit Raja, Selangor between 10am on Oct 19, 2006 and 1am the following day.
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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.
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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 »

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