Malaysia’s Anwar accuses PM, First Lady of ‘personal’ involvement in his sodomy trial

Malaysia’s Anwar says PM behind sodomy trial

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on Tuesday accused Malaysia’s prime minister and his wife of involvement in bringing the sodomy case against him, and said he would seek to put them on the witness stand to prove it.

Anwar’s long-awaited trial on charges of sodomizing a former male aide was postponed by about five hours pending a decision by another court whether the defense has the right to study in advance the evidence that the prosecution plans to unveil.

The former deputy prime minister has long maintained that the allegation is a conspiracy by his enemies to end his political career.

Anwar — dressed in gray shirt and jacket — was almost knocked down by television crews jostling to get near him as he arrived at the Kuala Lumpur High Court for the start of trial.

He came out of court about 30 minutes later to announce the trial had been adjourned until late afternoon.

Anwar was charged in August 2008 with sodomizing a 25-year-old male former aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan. He told reporters he has evidence that Saiful visited Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah a few days before making the allegation.

“They were personally involved in this conspiracy and frame-up. We have evidence that Saiful Bukhari was in the house with Rosmah and met Najib a few days before he lodged the police report,” Anwar said.

He said he plans to subpoena the prime minister and his wife as witnesses.

Najib has acknowledged Saiful came to see him but says it was in connection with a university scholarship. Najib was deputy prime minister at that time.

This is not the first time Anwar has been accused of sodomy.

He spent six years in prison after being convicted of corruption and an earlier sodomy charge, following his ouster from the Cabinet in 1998 amid a power struggle with then leader Mahathir Mohamad. He maintained his innocence all along and was freed in 2004 when Malaysia’s top court overturned the sodomy conviction.

Sodomy is a crime in this Muslim-majority country, carrying a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Anwar, 62, says the latest charge is designed to undermine his three-party opposition alliance, which made massive inroads during March 2008 general elections. Government officials deny plotting against Anwar.

A guilty conviction would bar Anwar from politics for five years from the date of his release, and deal a massive blow to the opposition alliance, which has appeared to be on the verge of breaking the ruling party’s stranglehold on power for the first time since independence in 1957.

But the alliance, whose members have widely differing political ideologies, is already showing cracks because of long-standing differences coming to the surface.

Anwar’s conviction could widen those cracks and also distract people from the country’s religious tensions and economic problems.

The trial was supposed to start last summer but was delayed by a series of applications by defense lawyers. On Friday, the Federal Court, Malaysia’s top judicial body, rejected their latest bid to force the prosecution to provide medical reports, camera recordings and other evidence ahead of the trial.

The defense asked the Federal Court to review its decision, which led to Tuesday’s five-hour adjournment.

Anwar’s lawyer, Sankara Nair, has also made another application to postpone the trial pending the outcome of a separate appeal before a different court.

Anwar was in a political wilderness after his first sodomy conviction. He revived his career with the March 2008 elections, when his alliance won more than one-third of the seats in Parliament amid public disenchantment with the National Front governing coalition.

However, new Prime Minister Najib Razak has regained some of the ground lost by his predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.