by Harun Rashid
Oct 10, 2000 

The prime minister of Malaysia dismissed the demonstrators at his recent Cambridge speech by saying, "they have not made a study of the Anwar Ibrahim case." Perhaps a precis of the trial testimony would assist in correcting the oversight. It would be well if the prime minister gave it a cursory study.

The Attorney-General of Malaysia personally represented the people of Malaysia in bringing a charge of sodomy against the deputy prime minister. His case was based on a letter written by the sodomee. During the trial the letter was found to have been written by a cabinet minister. The sodomee was brought to the stand as a prosecution witness.

He was unable to establish the date of the offense, but gave a date anyway. When it was found that this date was in error, it was changed, not once, but twice more. The third date was not an exact day, but a period of months in the early part of the year, five or six years prior. When asked about the method he used in determining the dates, he said they were provided by a policeman, whom he named.

The sodomee was asked about the alleged event. He said it never happened. He was asked a second time, to make certain he had understood the question. Again he replied that it did not happen. He was not 
sodomised by Anwar Ibrahim. A third time the sodomee was asked if the alleged event had occurred. A third time he said, "No." 

The attorney for the defence, in order to make certain the judge was awake, asked the judge to please record the amswer. The judge replied that he had noted the response of the witness. In spite of this denial by the sodomee, the only witness to the event and the basis for the entire case, the judge managed to find the witness "credible." If the witness was credible then his testimony that the event did not occur demands a verdict of not guilty.

The prosecution, embarrassed by this turn of events, attempted to impeach their own witness, stating that, "he is of low I.Q. and has little education." Given this knowledge, one wonders why the prosecution brought the case in the first place. There are few trials of record where the only witness for the prosecution denies the events of charge and is then impeached by the prosecuting attorneys.

The defence called witnesses who testified that they had been personal participants in a conspiracy to depose Anwar Ibrahim, giving the names of all parties and their roles in the conspiracy. The prosecution 
did not rebut this testimony. The judge avoided any mention of their testimony in his findings.

Those who followed the case were unable to explain the verdict. It was impossible to account for the behaviour of the Attorney-General's office. Every shred of hard evidence points to a conspiracy, and a malicious prosecution. It is this scenario that the prime minister and his justice minister attempt to defend before the world.

As a case study, it is a study of malicious prosecution rather than a study of a sodomy case. In a dictatorship the judges are controlled, as are the prosecutors. This does not excuse their behaviour. In the Nuremburg trials the judges and prosecutors were found guilty. The Nurenmburg trials are available on the internet for further study.

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