Anwar fails to disqualify Shafee from Sodomy II again

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and wife Datuk Seri Wan Azizah arrive for the hearing of the government’s appeal against Anwar’s acquittal in the Sodomy II case at the Court of Appeal Putrajaya September 17, 2013. — Picture by Choo Choy May

(MM) – Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim failed again today to boot Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah from the prosecution team in Sodomy II after the Court of Appeal decided that the Opposition Leader’s reasons for disqualification lacked merit.

In his application, Anwar had cited evidence from a former top police officer who had accused Shafee, a prominent Umno lawyer, of complicity in several other legal matters.

But according to news portal Malaysiakini, the appellate court said Anwar’s use of former KL CID chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim’s statutory declaration (SD) against Shafee could not be used.

“We are in agreement with the submission of Shafee that the contents are hearsay evidence and Mat Zain was not available for cross examination,” the portal quoted Court of Appeal judge Datuk Aziah Ali, who was part of a three-man bench, as saying.

The court also reportedly agreed with Shafee’s argument that discrepancies in Mat Zain’s personal details rendered the SD defective for use as grounds for Anwar’s disqualification bid.

“The IC and address of the SD was blotted out. It is inconceivable why Mat Zain refused to disclose his details in the SD if he stands by his allegation,” Aziah was quoted as saying.

Mat Zain was the investigating officer in the case involving the alleged assault of Anwar in the “black eye” incident of 1998. The former senior police officer has been lobbying reopen the case in a series of open letters penned to Bukit Aman and the government, insisting that Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail had been complicit in the alleged fabrication of evidence in the case.

Earlier this month, Anwar used Mat Zain’s October 7 SD as grounds to file his second application to disqualify Shafee from leading the government’s prosecution team, which is appealing his Sodomy II acquittal.

Anwar noted that in the SD, the ex-police officer had alleged that Shafee had known of Gani’s action in allegedly suppressing important evidence in the Pulau Batu Puteh hearing at the International Court of Justive (ICJ) in 2007 that caused Malaysia to lose Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore.

“Shafee told Mat Zain that ‘you will not believe your eyes if you were to see the amount of cash that was transferred into Gani’s account in Hong Kong’.

“Shafee agreed with Mat Zain that Gani had fabricated evidence against myself during the “black eye” investigation.

“Shafee agreed it was indeed true that Dr Abdul Rahman bin Yusof, a forensic consultant at Kuala Lumpur Hospital had fabricated evidence in my “black eye” investigation,” Anwar wrote in a recent statement to explain his application.

The PKR leader noted that Mat Zain had also claimed that Shafee was of the view that the three-member judicial panel that cleared Gani and former Inspector-General of Polie (IGP) Tan Sri Musa Hassan of allegations of tampering with his blood sample had been an “unconstitutional sitting”.

The three-member panel was chaired by Federal Court judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman and included Court of Appeal judges Mohd Nor Abdullah and Mohd Nor Ahmad.

On December 11, Shafee reportedly sought to distance himself from Mat Zain’s allegations of misconduct and in his affidavit-in-reply for Sodomy II, rejected the former top cop’s SD claims.

“I vehemently deny that I have been involved in any particular ‘meeting’ whatsoever and have commented on any alleged misconduct concerning the current Attorney-General TSGP, in particular, over the Batu Puteh controversy,” said Shafee, using Gani’s initials.

“I have never insinuated nor mentioned about funds in Hong Kong and such like.”

On November 21, Anwar had failed in his bid to dismiss Shafee from the prosecution panel in his second sodomy case when the Federal Court struck out his application.

In a unanimous decision, the country’s top court ruled that there was no conflict of interest in Putrajaya appointing the prominent Umno lawyer to act as a deputy public prosecutor (DPP).

“We dismiss the appeal and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeal,” Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Md Rauf Sharif, who chaired a full bench in the apex court, said in the judgment.

Rauf pointed out that Shafee was not found to be a relevant witness during Anwar’s second sodomy trial at the High Court.

The chair of the five-man bench also said that the Umno lawyer’s presence at Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s residence at the time the opposition leader’s accuser, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, had gone to see the country’s top leader to accuse Anwar of sodomy, was irrelevant.

“It’s too fleeting to bear any relevance to the sodomy charge,” said Rauf.

Anwar’s lead counsel, Karpal Singh, told the court on November 11 that it was perceived that Shafee was an interested party in the entire case due to his presence at the prime minister’s residence at the same time when Saiful was there.

But Shafee had countered that the court cannot make a decision based on unproven claims, as there was no evidence to support the argument that there was a conflict of interest in his appointment by the Attorney-General to lead their appeal against Anwar’s acquittal.

He had said the mere fact that he was present in “one corner of the house”, while the meeting between Najib and Saiful went on, did not prove that he had anything to do with it.