Eye-popping revelations in Anwar's sodomy trial

It has been a series of eye-popping revelations at Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial last week at Kuala Lumpur High Court in Jalan Duta.

The testimony of two of the three Hospital Kuala Lumpur doctors who examined Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan ( left ) and the chemist who conducted the DNA tests proved extremely interesting.

On Monday, the defence managed to raise doubts on the pro-forma form filled by the HKL doctors due to the presence of three different styles of handwriting on it.

They also questioned whether the examination performed complied to international standards, if the doctors were biased in preparing their reports and finally whether the samples were really tamperproof.

There was also testimony that Saiful was unusually calm during examination and that the victim performed oral sex, resulting in HKL doctor Dr Khairul Nizam Hassan taking samples from the victim's mouth.

On Wednesday lawyer Karpal Singh again pointed to a discrepancy in the pro-forma form where it was stated "attempted sodomy" and "attempted oral sex" and this was again put to Dr Khairul Nizam.

However, on re-examination Dr Khairul told the court Saiful did indeed tell them he was sodomised and had performed oral sex.

Power outage

Karpal then pressed that because of the inconsistencies, the charge against Anwar should be dropped. Incidentally the sodomy trial was cut short that day because of a power outage .

The trial resumed on Thursday with chemist Dr Seah Lay Hong ( right ), who is also head of the Serious Crimes Unit of the Chemistry Department, testifying to the presence of the DNA of three males, including that of Saiful in the victim's peri-anal area.

The witness, the fifth by the prosecution, also testified that there were seminal stains found on Saiful's green underwear and also on his black trousers that he wore in the alleged incident. On the green underwear, there was the presence of a "Male Y" DNA.

"Male Y's" DNA (speculated to be Anwar's) was also found as part of the DNA of three males, on three cotton swabs retrieved from Saiful's high rectal and low rectal area.

The final day saw the defence harping on the three male DNA samples retrieved from the peri-anal area, and the suggestion by Anwar's lawyers that the DNA of up to 10 males from could be present. Seah said this was a possibility although unlikely.

What to expect this week

Seah is expected to finish her testimony tomorrow when Ram finishes his cross-examination and this is followed by re-examination by the prosecution.

Following this, another chemist expected to take a stand. As to the question who is next to testify after that, it is up to anybody's guess besides the normal police officers and investigating officer Superintendent Jude Blacious Pereira.

This follows what Karpal had complained till today, that the prosecution was not been given access to the prosecution's witness list.

Anwar's defence is mainly his alibi in that he was in a different apartment adjacent to the alleged sodomy event.

Saiful maintains that Anwar was not in that other unit but in the said unit where the sodomy incident occured

The opposition leader was said to be briefed over the state of Malaysia's economy at the time of the incident by five people including local economists, and academicians, when the alleged incident happened.

It is learnt that since Anwar ( left) was charged, they had not been in contact. These people are the key witnesses to veirfy Anwar's alibi.

Should they turn over to the prosecution it would likely be the end for the opposition leader.

They are also Anwar's key defence witnesses but the problem persists in that they are not contactable by the defence after the opposition leader was charged.

For this reason, Karpal said Anwar's defence team had gone on to cast doubts on the doctor's and chemist testimony.

It would be interesting to see whether the prosecution may wrap up its case, as the trial had been fixed until March 25, and in between we have the two by-elections and a Parliament sitting which begins on March 7.