the Attorney-General chambers.
Anwar Ibrahim is both a political icon and a game changer in Malaysian politics. A former anointed successor to Tun Dr. Mahathir, he was charged for Sodomy in 1998 and imprisoned for a considerable period of time in Sungai Buloh.
The continuing efforts to use the judicial system against opposition political leaders will undermine Malaysia’s leadership role in regional and global affairs as well as weaken Malaysia’s traditions of political openness and democracy. Malaysian authorities, as Human Rights Watch Asia Director, Phil Robertson, has stated, “risk making a travesty of the country’s criminal justice system” unless they withdraw their case against Anwar Ibrahim.
Former US Vice President Al Gore framed the issue clearly last March when he said: “It is extremely disturbing that the government of Malaysia – by continuing to press this case beyond the bounds of reason, let alone the bounds of justice – has used the courts to short-circuit the political process.”
Anwar Ibrahim ( Malaysia’s Parliamentary Leader of the Opposition) is in the Malaysian Federal Court this week for what hopefully is the last chapter in a sordid affair that has done nothing but distract him from his reform agenda. We have been critical of Malaysia’s Judiciary in the past and hope that at this moment in time, the five judges at the Federal Court who are tasked with reviewing the appeal of Ibrahim’s March conviction on charges of sodomy, will adhere strictly to the Rule of Law and not be swayed by external political influences.
The debate around decriminalising
Rats should be the second-most-successful mammals in the world after humans, given their almost equal distribution across the planet. No one would seriously dispute that these two species also overlap when it comes to many characteristics. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the most enduring urban myths is that in Putra Jaya — a city that prizes many a gnawing murine and human quality — there are as many rats like Muhammad Shafee Abdullah as there are people like Mahathir .Sri Ram was countering the claim by lead prosecutor Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah that Saiful was a victim of sexual abuse suffered under Anwar, with whom he claimed "had a relationship".
Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has denied Anwar Ibrahims allegations that he had said that he wanted to hit the 'final nail in Anwars coffin.'
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