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

said. Another witness, Nor Azman Abdullah, who said he once had an intimate relationship with Ummi, told the court she had admitted to pressuring Azizan to accuse Anwar of sodomizing him. Nor Azman said Ummi had told him she contributed to the book, 50 Dalil, which was sponsored by prominent UMMO members. Ummi had said that after Anwar was brought down, she was to be given a RM10 million business contract. Nor Azman said Ummi had confirmed she wrote the original letter to Dr. Mahathir about Anwar, but said it had been altered by Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin, the prime ministerial aide.

But Justice Ariffin Jaka was unimpressed and said conspiracy was not an issue "in this case". On 8 August 2000, three weeks after the trial closed, he found Anwar guilty of sodomy and sent him to jail for nine years, fixing the sentence to begin when he had served the six years for his earlier conviction. Sukma, 39, was given six years imprisonment and two strokes of the cane on each of two charges, his jail terms to be served concurrently. Anwar, 53, escaped the cane because of his age.

After the Court of Appeal upheld the judge's decision in April 2003, attention focused on the part played by the judges who were involved in each stage of Anwar's legal ordeal. The three judges who heard the appeal were relatively junior in the Court of Appeal, and there was no explanation as to why more senior judges were bypassed.[80] When the extremely junior Justice P.S. Gill was selected to chair the panel, Malaysia's chief justice was warned privately it was being speculated in legal circles that Gill had been promised a promotion to the Federal Court in return for dismissing the appeal.[81] In any event, he was quickly promoted to the Federal Court. Similarly, Augustine Paul and Ariffin Jaka were elevated to the Federal Court, leap-frogging colleagues with longer and stronger records. Paul's bright career prospects seemed undimmed by a Federal Court decision that overturned lawyer Zainur Zakaria's conviction for contempt and prompted a judicial comment that Paul had acted more like a prosecutor than a judge in Anwar's first trial.[82]

In a statement after the Court of Appeal ruled against him on sodomy, Anwar attacked Ariffin Jaka, Augustine Paul and the three appeal court judges for having "wantonly sold their souls for worldly gains". He said the public believed these judges were "hand-picked, servile and compliant", and had been "promptly and generously rewarded with promotions, unfairly bypassing independent judges of integrity".[83]

International and independent local legal experts concurred that the two trials were deeply flawed and that the judges were culpable. Param Cumaraswamy, a Malaysian who at the time was United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, said there was "no hope for judicial independence and impartiality" while some judges were prepared to compromise the values of their high office in politically sensitive cases.[84] In a report for the Australian Bar Association and the International Commission of Jurists, Queen's Counsel Mark Trowell said the Malaysian justice system "failed to act independently from the executive arm of government", which was largely identified with Dr. Mahathir's interests.[85] A joint report by a mission representing four international legal organizations agreed that executive influence severely compromised the judiciary during Anwar's trials.[86]

On 2 September 2004, precisely six years after Anwar was fired and almost a year after Dr. Mahathir had retired, the Federal Court overturned the former deputy prime minister's sodomy conviction. In a majority decision, the court found that Sukma's confession was inadmissible because it was "involuntary", and Azizan was an unreliable witness whose testimony had not been corroborated where he was obviously an accomplice. Two of the three judges concluded that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and both Anwar and Sukma should have been acquitted without having to enter a defence. Subsequently, after Sukma won a retrial for his original conviction, all charges against him were withdrawn. A similar appeal by Munawar Anees, who had become an American citizen and was living in France, was still pending in early 2009.

Most of the experts agreed that Anwar was exonerated only because Dr. Mahathir had left the scene and his successor, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, had made it clear he would not try to impose his will on the court. "Finally, justice has been done," said Param Cumaraswamy. "Since 1988, under the Mahathir regime, the judiciary did not have the courage to dispense justice independently."[87] Mark Trowell said the judiciary "simply failed to respond fairly and impartially to Anwar's complaints" until Dr. Mahathir's influence had been lifted by his departure from office. "Only then could the abuses and injustices of past legal proceedings be rectified," he said.[88] Anwar also credited Abdullah with keeping his hands off. "You've got to recognize the fact that his predecessor wouldn't have made this judgment possible," he said.[89]

But Anwar's vindication was qualified as well as belated. The two Federal Court judges who cleared him and Sukma of sodomy said there was evidence to confirm they had been involved in homosexual activities, though the judges failed to provide any explanation of how they had reached that conclusion. Their comment was derided as political by critics: "acquitted but guilty".[90] Anwar was freed immediately as he had already completed his sentence, reduced to four years for good behaviour, for the corruption offence. One final attempt to get the Federal Court to reverse its own decision allowing the corruption conviction, based on new evidence and a constitutional point, failed. The five outstanding charges against Anwar — one of corruption, four of sodomy — were dropped. He was barred from holding political office and sitting in Parliament until April 2008, five years after completing his sentence. The only way for an earlier return was to obtain a pardon from Malaysia's king, which required an admission of guilt, and that was out of the question for Anwar. He was adamant he was innocent.

Despite repeated efforts, Anwar was never