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Anwar's trial must proceed, questions answered

Dear Inter-Parliamentary Union,

I am appreciative of the fact that you are very concerned about the quality of legal proceedings in my country as evidenced by your resolution on the current Anwar Ibrahim sodomy trial.

I understand why, on the basis of the Trowell report to you on the discrepancies surrounding the trial, you are led to observe that there is a lack of equality between the prosecution and the defence.

I am also in full agreement with your call to the Malaysian Parliament to ensure a better administration of justice.

However, I disagree strongly with your stand that the interest of the Malaysian public would be served by having the proceedings stopped.

To do so is nothing less than to impose exceedingly high standards, yours but not Malaysia's, over a trial which has thus far proceeded in fits and starts.

Notwithstanding the apparently flawed proceedings, as an ordinary Malaysian, I would like to see the trial continue as I am very interested to know what facts and evidence will be further presented by both the prosecution and defence to support their case.

As an observer of the first sodomy trial of Anwar Ibrahim circa 1998-2000 and as his ardent sympathiser during those times, I have to say there are some questions I really would like answered, hopefully during the present proceedings.

Also there are some notable peculiarities, independent of the actions of the prosecution, which make me believe the trial should proceed.

First, in the 1998-2000 trial Anwar was evidently victimised by trumped up charges of sodomy and homosexuality and suffered six years of incarceration as a result.

Right now, I am dying to know what it was that possessed him to be caught in circumstances that allowed for similar charges, as his earlier trial, to be laid against him. Has he not learned anything from experience?

This is not an instance of ‘blaming the victim'. On the contrary, it is a fair question to ask of someone who aspires to be the country's prime minister.

I want to know whether it was sheer lack of good judgement on his part or the existence of some uncontrollable latent tendencies within him that set the ball rolling in the present saga. Either way, it does not look good for a man who wants to be the leader of 27 million of his fellow Malaysians .

Second, singularly unprecedented in Malaysian legal history, it was the defence in a sexual offence case that requested for the alleged victim's testimony of the offence to be held in camera.

And the presiding judge was impartial enough to allow the request. I do not know if both facts had been included in Mr Trowell's report to the IPU. As a man-on-the-street observing the trial, I am now really interested to know what it was that the defence wanted to hide by shielding from public knowledge that particular witness's testimony of the alleged sexual act.

With millions of other Malaysians, I wanted to know if the reputedly formidable lead counsel for the defence had managed to tear into shreds the testimony of that witness relating to the alleged sex act.

It was not just a matter of doing so before the judge. It was an opportunity for the defence to sway public opinion that the witness was a false one.

Most disappointingly, it was not to be as, through the defence's own doing, the press was not allowed to report that particular testimony. How very odd, I thought, and how very different it is from the first sodomy trial.

Third, the testimony of medical professionals had only just begun in the trial. It is beginning to get really interesting. I was truly disappointed that the lead counsel for the defence chose not to immediately cross-examine the doctors.

Maybe he was flummoxed by their answers to the prosecutors' questions; maybe in his wisdom he needed to consult his set of medical experts to look for holes in the doctors' testimony. Whatever it is, the defence should not be denied their chance to cross-examine the doctors. For that reason, it is very much in the public interest for the trial to proceed.

Finally, as I said above, the present trial had progressed very intermittently. This is in marked contrast to the first sodomy trial where there was a very discernible hurriedness in the proceedings, so much so that it was plausibly termed a persecution rather than prosecution.

For this reason, I am very much inclined to maintain an objective outlook rather than have any pre-conceived ideas over the current trial, despite the discrepancies observed by Mr Trowell.

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