Anwar goes to Federal Court in another bid to disqualify Shafee as prosecutor
V. Anbalagan, TMI
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has gone to the Federal Court in his bid to disqualify Umno lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah from leading the prosecution team in the government’s appeal against his acquittal for sodomy.
The opposition leader’s lawyer Karpal Singh filed the notice of appeal at the Federal Court registry today.
“We will apply next week for the written grounds from the Court of Appeal which dismissed Anwar’s second application on December 20 to dismiss Shafee,” Karpal told The Malaysian Insider.
Karpal said lawyer Tommy Thomas would continue to represent Anwar in the Federal Court.
Karpal is the lead counsel who handled the sodomy case in the High Court and represented Anwar in the first application to disqualify Shafee as the deputy public prosecutor (DPP).
He said the Federal Court is expected to hear the appeal next month as the Court of Appeal has fixed two days from February 12 to hear the prosecution’s appeal against Anwar’s acquittal.
On January 9, 2012, Anwar, 66, was acquitted by the High Court on a charge of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan at a condominium unit in Bukit Damansara in 2008.
His second application to disqualify Shafee, based on a statutory declaration (SD) by former Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigation Department chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim, was dismissed on December 20 by a three-man Court of Appeal.
Anwar filed the application on December 6 after Mat Zain’s SD was made public on December 2.
Anwar said Shafee was not a fit and proper person to be a DPP due to the revelation in the SD.
