Anwar’s second bid to recuse judge
The defence team is expected to file a fresh application with the High Court registry tomorrow.
(Free Malaysia Today) – Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s lawyers will file a fresh application to recuse his sodomy trial judge Mohamad Zabidin Mod Diah with the High Court registry here tomorrow.
FMT learnt that one of the factors for the application would be Zabidin’s lengthy grounds to order Anwar to enter his defence.
“Normally such broad reasons will be given at the end of the defence or if the defendant is acquitted at the end of the prosecution’s case. But here, the judge took more than one and a half hours to order Anwar to enter his defence,” said a source close to the defence team.
Contacted later, Anwar’s counsel Sankara Nair confirmed that an application would be filed but declined to reveal the grounds.
In a related development, Sankara said the defence team had only interviewed five out of the 25 witnesses it had requested.
These were former sprint queen Mumtaz Jaafar, Dr Mohd Osman Abd Hamid, a medical doctor from Kuala Lumpur Hospital, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s private secretary and complainant Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan’s younger sister.
Sankara said former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan and former Malacca police chief Mohd Rodwan Yusof had agreed to be interviewed last Friday but did not turn up.
The interview was scheduled to take place at one of the deputy public prosecutor’s room on the fifth floor of the Jalan Duta Court.
“No reasons were given,” he said, adding that the defence also requested to interview Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor but the prosecution had yet to indicate when and where this could take place.
On May 16, immediately after Zabidin’s decision, Solicitor-General II Mohd Yusof Zainal Adiden informed the court that the prosecution was offering 72 witnesses to the defence.
