Anwar’s Acquittal – What Are The Hidden Messages?

By now everybody in Planet Earth knows de-facto opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has been acquitted on a charge of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008. The acquittal surprises many people – from opposition parties, Najib administration, former premier Mahathir and even Anwar himself. But was Anwar really surprised with the verdict?

For a person who was about 90% to be sent behind bars for the second time for the same sodomy charge, Anwar doesn’t seems to be the happiest person in comparison to his wife, daughters, the thousands cheering crowds and his buddies from the opposition parties.

For a start, five days before the verdict, the once fierce and deadly keris-waver Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein (cousin of PM Najib Razak) surprised many cats with his super soft approach by allowing 9-Jan rally with a lame condition that the “901-Free Anwar Campaign” organizer must guarantee a peaceful rally. Despite hundreds of reports lodged nationwide against the rally, the Home Minister must either be drunk or had switched his brains with Princess Diana for allowing such “illegal rally”.

Then, the IGP (Inspector-General of Police) was super proactive by instructing the city police chief to meet the organisers over the rally. The second sweet-cherry surprise came when the police granted permit to the “901 Free Anwar” rally when the same police force preferred a confrontation against any rally in the past, the latest being barely six months ago during Bersih 2.0 rally. Of course there was negligible hiccup such as the silly 10-condition string attached after the permit was granted, of which the rally participants didn’t give a hoot to, and the police didn’t enforce it seriously at the court house nonetheless.

Compared to Bersih 2.0′s “Walk for Democracy” rally where more than a dozen FRU trucks and about 300 FRU and other police personnel were stationed near Masjid Jamek alone, one must be wondering if all these heavyweight terminators are on vacation this time, judging from the lack of FRU presence during the “901 Free Anwar” rally. This was a surprise indeed as the rally was allegedly supposed to garner a bigger crowd of 100,000 participants.

The judge in delivering his short two minute acquittal verdict gave a simple explanation that the DNA sample could have been contaminated and hence he could not rely on the controversial DNA evidence submitted by the prosecution, before disappearing into his chamber as if he was constipated. This despite the fact that Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah ruled back in May 2011 that Mohd Saiful was a “credible and truthful witness”. The furious Anwar and his legal team applied to replace the judge as he prejudged before the trial concluded. So, it was surprise that only now the same judge realized there was no case after all.