A lawyer representing Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has received instructions to file a suit against several newspapers and his nemesis Dr Mahathir Mohamad following alleged misreporting over the WikiLeaks affair.

sankara nair bukit aman teresea kok isa arrest pc 170908 02 Sankara Nair ( right ) said he had received instructions to that effect from the Permatang Pauh MP today.

“I cannot reveal much details as it is still being worked out. However, I can confirm that a suit against Mahathir will also be filed.

“It would be interesting and slightly ironic to see whether Mahathir will have to seek his arch-rival Lee Kuan Yew to help him in his defence,” he told Malaysiakini .

Mahathir and Lee, the former prime minister of Singapore, have long been at odds and shared a shaky relationship as leaders of Malaysia and Singapore respectively.  

It was reported by the Australian Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday that a leaked US State Department diplomatic cable contained remarks by senior government officials that the sodomy charge against Anwar was a result of a “set-up job” by his enemies.

According to the newspaper, the cable in question revealed that Lee and Singaporean intelligence officials had told Australia’s intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessment (ONA), that “opposition leader Anwar ‘did indeed commit the acts for which he is currently indicted’.”

Yesterday, Mahathir at a press conference expressed scepticism that his former deputy was a target of sexual entrapment.

When asked, however, how Lee would know about Anwar and his alleged activities, Mahathir said: “I suppose he has suspected as much, he must have been told. Singapore is watching us closely, as are the CIA, and the Australians.”

Sub-judice

Yesterday Sankara questioned such a notion of entrapment.

“Who in his sane and right mind would deliberately walk into a trap if he has prior knowledge of it?” asked Sankara.

The lawyer also warned the media of sub-judice in relation to Anwar's on-going sodomy trial, and singled out the New Straits Times and Utusan Malaysia ’s reports as ‘irresponsible journalism’ for selectively highlighting the reports.

Sankara had said the local media has chosen to rely on hearsay to publish matters that are unsubstantiated.

In a related development, PKR vice-president and Batu MP Tian Chua posted on a twitter message that he will go to the Singapore High Commission this afternoon to submit a letter seeking official clarification on the comments by Singaporean officials in the cable.

The cables referred to by the Sydney Morning Herald are part of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables between the US State Department and its embassies around the world that whistleblower website WikiLeaks had 'dumped' onto the Internet last month.

The cables in question allegedly revealed that Lee and Singaporean intelligence officials had told ONA that "opposition leader Anwar 'did indeed commit the acts for which he is currently indicted'."

The document stated that the Singaporeans told ONA they made this assessment on the basis of ''technical intelligence'', which The Sun-Herald said is likely to relate to intercepted communications.

The ONA is also recorded as saying that Anwar's political enemies engineered the circumstances from which the sodomy charges arose.

"'ONA assessed, and their Singapore counterparts concurred, 'it was a set-up job and he probably knew that, but walked into it anyway'," The Sun-Herald said citing the cable.