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

taking on the mantle of the prosecution". On 23 March 1999, when the parties were invited to sum up, the defence refused to do so until the application had been dealt with by the judge. He insisted the case continue. When the entire nine-member defence team maintained its refusal, Paul held its members in contempt of court. But on 25 March, the defence lawyers were informed that Paul would hear the application for his removal on 27 March, a Saturday. After listening to arguments from both sides, he dismissed the application.[76]

The defence clashed again with the judge during the summing up. After Christopher Fernando, another defence lawyer, became embroiled in an exchange, Raja Aziz Addruse, Anwar's respected leading counsel, agreed that what Fernando had said was correct but expressed in the wrong way. He said he was sure Fernando did not mean to be impolite, adding, "That's his way of speaking." Replied Paul: "If the way of speaking is like an animal, we can't tolerate it. We should shoot him." Later, when Fernando sought to cite the judge for contempt of his own court, Paul said he had not intended to liken Fernando to an animal.[77]

On 14 April 1999, 11 days after the trial closed with the defence refusing to make a final submission, Paul found Anwar guilty of all four charges and jailed him for six years on each, the sentences to be served concurrently. Contrary to usual practice in Malaysia, he dated the sentences from the day before conviction and not from the time of arrest to take account of the almost seven months Anwar had spent behind bars. He also dismissed a defence application for a stay of execution and bail pending an appeal. The sentences were regarded as harsh, since the "corrupt practice" with which Anwar was charged was, as one Kuala Lumpur-based foreign journalist wrote, "a minor transgression compared with the widely accepted corruption rampant throughout all levels of the Malaysian government".[78]

Although Anwar's conviction was judged almost unanimously by international legal and human rights organizations as a miscarriage of justice, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision in April 2001. An appeal to the Federal Court was also rejected in July 2002. All levels of the Malaysian court system simply did not see, as expert observers did, violations of due process, mis-directions and unfair rulings by the judge and the admission of obviously inadmissible evidence.[79]

On 27 April, less than two weeks after his conviction, Anwar was back in court charged with "carnal intercourse against the order of nature". Prosecutors proceeded with one of the five sodomy charges, the one allegedly involving Azizan, attempting to prove what had eluded them in the first trial. They chose not to go ahead with the counts allegedly involving four other people, three of whom — including Sukma Darmawan, Anwar's adopted brother — had publicly claimed they were coerced by police into falsely accusing Anwar of sodomizing them. The government, however, charged Sukma with sodomizing Azizan and with abetting Anwar to sodomize Azizan. Anwar and Sukma were tried jointly in the High Court.

When Anwar's sodomy charge was first mentioned in a lower court, the date of the alleged offence was May 1994. At the preliminary hearing it had been changed to May 1992. As the trial got underway, the prosecution moved to have the charge amended to stipulate that the offence had been committed one night between January and March 1993. The reason for the latest switch was obvious: Anwar and Sukma had filed an advance notice of alibi, which showed that the apartment in which their offences were alleged to have been committed had not been completed for occupancy in May 1992. Anwar's lawyers accused the prosecution of acting in bad faith and sought to have the charges thrown out, but the judge, Ariffin Jaka, allowed the amendment.

Still, the prosecution had to rely heavily on the uncorroborated testimony of Azizan, who had given contradictory evidence earlier. Azizan had told the first trial he was sodomized by Anwar on more than one occasion in 1992, but that he had "no problems" with Anwar after that. At the second trial, Azizan said he meant he had not been sodomized in Anwar's house since 1992. After Azizan admitted under cross-examination that he had changed the dates at the request of police, the defence attempted to get his evidence struck out on the grounds that he had contradicted himself and lied to the court. Ariffin rejected the defence request again, even though he himself had remarked at one point that "this witness says one thing today and another thing tomorrow".

As in the first trial, one of Anwar's eight lawyers found himself in legal trouble over his conduct in court. Karpal Singh, a veteran advocate and opposition politician, suggested Anwar had been poisoned. He said a urine sample sent under a false name for analysis in Australia showed Anwar had a dangerous level of arsenic, 77 times above normal, and that someone might be trying to kill him. Calling for an inquiry, Karpal said he suspected some people in high places were "in all likelihood responsible for the situation". After Anwar was sent to hospital and tests showed his arsenic level was normal, without refuting earlier evidence that the level had been significantly elevated, the government slapped Karpal with a charge of sedition, which carried a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment.

Given more leeway this time to develop Anwar's argument of a political conspiracy, the defence was able to get support from an UMNO member, Raja Kamaruddin Wahid. He testified that Dr. Mahathir's political secretary, Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin, had told him on 26 June 1998 about plans to destroy Anwar's reputation so he could never become prime minister. He said Abdul Aziz had said he long wanted revenge against Anwar, and the best way to tarnish him was to make up sodomy and adultery charges. Abdul Aziz had said he was paying Azizan and Ummi Hafilda Ali to invent stories about Anwar, the witness