Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📕

hours to "turn over" Ummi and Azizan, meaning to have them recant. The Special Branch officers testified they obtained retractions by subjecting the two to night-long, non-stop interrogation and threats.

Presiding at the trial was Justice S. Augustine Paul, the most junior judge in the Criminal Division of the High Court, having only months earlier been promoted from the position of judicial commissioner in the state capital of Malacca. His appointment ahead of more senior colleagues to conduct such a politically sensitive trial was "almost bound to give rise to concern", reported an international legal mission that investigated the independence of the Malaysian judiciary. And what happened during the trial "only served to increase that concern", it said.[69] Paul denied Anwar bail. He announced, without explanation, a break in proceedings between 14 and 23 November, interpreted as an attempt to prevent the Anwar affair from overshadowing an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Kuala Lumpur, at which Dr. Mahathir hosted world leaders.

Early on, Paul warned that anyone commenting on Anwar's guilt or innocence outside the court would be committing contempt and punished. Dr. Mahathir, however, felt free to express his views frequently and forcefully, leaving no doubt he thought Anwar was guilty. Paul never rebuked the prime minister or carried out his threat and punished him.

After hearing summaries of the evidence to be given by a number of defence witnesses, the judge refused to let them testify. When a lawyer argued that the defence would be "impeded" and "hindered" if the proposed evidence were excluded, Paul called it an irresponsible statement and said the two words "bordered on contempt of court". Paul went even further when lawyer Zainur Zakaria filed an affidavit on Anwar's behalf seeking to have the chief prosecutor and his deputy removed from the case. The affidavit said the two prosecutors had offered a plea bargain arrangement to Nallakaruppan, Anwar's tennis partner, in return for false evidence against Anwar. Paul contended there was no basis for Zainur saying there had been a request for "fabricated evidence". When Zainur refused to tender an unconditional apology, Paul jailed him for three months for contempt, though another court suspended the sentence until his appeal was heard.

The composition of the prosecuting team, initially led by Abdul Gani Patail and his deputy, Azahar Mohamed, was highly controversial, though not just because Gani was the brother of Wahab Patail, the judge who had allowed Anwar to be besmirched in the Nallakaruppan case. In the course of the Anwar trial, Attorney General Mokhtar Abdullah joined in and took over as leader, despite being implicated, both personally and through his position in the government, by the defence allegations of a political and police conspiracy.[70] The defence wanted Gani and Azahar replaced because of what the prestigious Inter-Parliamentary Union later agreed were "attempts made by the prosecution to fabricate evidence" against Anwar.[71] The allegation, contained in a statutory declaration by Nallakaruppan's lawyer, was that Gani had offered to consider a lesser charge for Nallakaruppan if he implicated Anwar in sexual offences. Gani not only remained on the job, but by the time of Anwar's second trial had been appointed attorney general and again led the prosecution.

With the defence claiming the charges were "trumped up", Anwar testified that he had political foes who would stop at nothing to destroy him politically and that there were major differences between him and Dr. Mahathir. But Paul ruled that evidence of a "political conspiracy" against Anwar, the heart of his case, was irrelevant, though evidence of a police conspiracy was allowed subject to certain restrictions. Protested Anwar: "Your Lordship has said don't touch on political conspiracy. I do not know what to do with my defence because they are so inter-related. The police conspiracy cannot stand alone. I am helpless."[72]

As the prosecution sought to prove Anwar's unbridled bisexuality, the public was treated to another assault on the conventions of good taste and decency that had made publication of such details taboo in the past. Azizan Abu Bakar, the driver, claimed Anwar had sodomized him against his will several times in 1992. The daily Star reported his first day's testimony under a page-one banner that read, I WAS A SEX SLAVE.[73] Police hauled into court a king-size mattress, supposedly stained with semen and seized from an apartment where Anwar allegedly had sex with his private secretary's wife and allegedly had sodomized Azizan. Malay-language media had to coin new words to express the technical vocabulary of human sexuality, which "was once considered to be unspeakable in a Malay cultural context".[74] Appalled that local papers had taken to running headlines that would "curl the whiskers of a sewer rat", a prominent Malay writer asked on the Internet, "What next? Soiled underwear? Used condoms?"[75]

Difficulties arose for the prosecution when Azizan, under cross-examination, said he had not been sodomized. When pushed in re-examination, he changed his mind yet again and said he had been. He also changed the dates on which the alleged offences had occurred. The prosecution responded by applying, at the end of its case, to amend the four charges in a way that removed the need to prove the sexual acts took place in order to obtain a conviction on the corruption issue. Although the defence complained of an abuse of process that smeared Anwar and his secretary's wife, Paul saw no prejudice to the accused and allowed the amendment. He also expunged from the record all evidence relating to Anwar's alleged sexual misconduct and sodomy, which meant the defence was powerless to try and restore his reputation.

After the defence closed its case, Anwar's lawyers filed an application seeking to disqualify Augustine Paul from continuing to hear the case. Anwar contended he had not received a fair trail and had "grave apprehension" that the judge might not bring an impartial and unprejudiced mind in weighing the issues and reaching a verdict. On top of everything else, it was claimed, the judge kept "interfering" when defence lawyers were questioning witnesses "to the extent of himself