Senior lawyer Karpal Singh plans to turn the issue of Rahimi Osman's surprise allegation when Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial resumes on Oct 14 into a case for the prosecution to hand over its list of witnesses.

Karpal said it is odd for Rahimi to only make claims he was forced to sign the statutory declarations after more than two years.

"Why does he want to report it now after all these years. The authorities should not only look as to what Rahimi complained about but also why it took him so long to do so and what prompted him.

"I will also bring this matter up when the trial resumes on Thursday. I will also make a case once again for the prosecution to provide a witness list, something which they had failed to do so since the start of the trial," he told Malaysiakini .

When asked, Karpal said he does not know whether Rahimi will now be a prosecution witness  in the wake of the recent turn of events.

"I truly cannot answer the question as we do not have the witness list. However, I will bring up the issue on Thursday, as the practise of lodging police reports after two years or so must stop. If the police or court entertain such reports or allegations, it would not stop others from making reports 20 years' after an incident," he said.

police take statement from karpal singh 010510 Karpal ( left ) had twice complained about not getting the prosecution's witness list, usually the norm in civil and criminal cases in the country.

Yesterday, Rahimi had alleged in his police report that he was forced to sign two statutory declarations sometime in June 2008, to implicate Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, in a conspiracy against the PKR de-facto leader.

Would not affect case

When asked whether Rahimi's revelations would affect the on-going trial, Karpal was in agreement with PKR vice-president Sivarasa Rasiah, that it would not.

"It is something which is not for us to take seriously...it will not affect us much. However, what is important is for us to have the witness list," he reiterated .

Also today, Sivarasa had described Rahimi's statutory declaration as irrelevant, the  same views echoed by PKR information chief Latheefa Koya, as complainant Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan had already testified on the meeting of Najib, Rosmah and her friend Mumtaz Jaafar.

Anwar's sodomy trial will resume for two days on Thursday and Friday, and then again from Oct 25 to 29.