Anwar trial a sham, says lawyers’ group
LFL finds the judge’s opinion full of errors and calls the case the ‘most obvious example of the dishonest and unlawful cooperation between supposedly independent state apparatus’.
(Free Malaysia Today) – Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) today criticised the High Court’s decision ordering Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim to defend himself against the charge that he sodomised a former aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan.
“The Anwar Ibrahim trial is a sham and has absolutely no credibility whatsoever,” the human rights and law reform group said in a statement today.
Earlier today, Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah said the prosecution had a prima facie case against Anwar and that he found Saiful a credible witness.
The judge also said expert witnesses had corroborated Saiful’s testimony, but LFL countered this by referring to the medical report.
“The medical report actually showed that there was ‘no conclusive clinical findings suggestive of penetration to the anus/rectum and no significant defensive wound on the body of the patient’,” it said, referring to the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital report of June 28, 2008.
“But only in Malaysia such a medical report was held not to cast a reasonable doubt and the doctors then testified contrary to the medical report findings in order to implicate Anwar.”
LFL also questioned Saiful’s credibility.
“How can the judge come to the conclusion that the complainant Saiful Bukhari was a credible and truthful witness when he has given serious contradictory and highly suspect evidence and even had an affair with one of the prosecutors in the case?” it said.
“He even testified in court that he met up with senior police officers and high-level Umno politicians, including the prime minister and his wife, before he made his police report against Anwar. Is that not sufficient to cast a reasonable doubt on the case?”
