Syariah court used for political agenda, claims Anwar
By Melissa Chi, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim accused the Syariah court today of being politically manipulated and for blundering in rejecting his application to prosecute his former aide for making a false accusation of sodomy against him.
The opposition leader is appealing against a decision to dismiss his application for qazaf, or false accusation, in the Syariah court.
The PKR de facto leader filed an amendment today to his notice of appeal over his qazaf appeal to compel the prosecution to charge Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.
“The Syariah prosecutor failed to fulfil their duty because of political instructions and did not prosecute based on my report,” he said.
The amendment was over the word “keseluruhan” which means overall, which was omitted in the appeal notice.
“The technical issues to me are not important because it’s the core issue, why did the prosecutor refuse to prosecute in such a clear-cut case?
“I am disappointed because the judiciary system, the Syariah court itself, has been used for political agenda,” Anwar (picture) said.
He added that to his knowledge, the prosecution team had prepared a case to charge Saiful, and yet the process had been interrupted.
“So when you come to a stage like in this country where the Syariah court can be used and manipulated by the political forces, then it’s a sad stage for this country because not only are the courts in question, but the Syariah court is deemed to be ineffective, a stooge of the political masters,” he said.
Accompanying him were his wife, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, and his lead counsel for qazaf, Kamar Ainiah Kamaruzaman.
Anwar, 63, had on April 23 filed the appeal after the Syariah High Court dismissed his application to initiate qazaf proceedings against Saiful.
On May 14, Federal Territory chief Syariah prosecutor Shamsuddin Hussain, FT Religious Department director Datuk Che Mat Che Ali and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom, as the applicants, had applied to strike out Anwar’s appeal on the grounds that his notice of appeal was defective.
On January 7, Anwar had applied to the Syariah High Court to compel the trio, who he had named as the respondents, to initiate prosecution proceedings against Mohd Saiful, citing that the latter had made false sodomy accusations about Anwar.
