Anwar's new bid to disqualify Shafee to be heard Dec 19

The Court of Appeal has adjourned to Dec 19 the hearing of Anwar Ibrahim's second application to disqualify senior lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah as lead prosecutor for the government in the Sodomy II acquittal appeal.

Tommy Thomas (left), Anwar's lawyer for this application, said he needed time to reply to Shafee's affidavit which he had received only this morning.

Shafee, who was appointed by Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail last July to lead the prosecution team, told the court earlier that the AG’s Chambers received the sealed copy of Anwar’s notice of motion application and affidavit in support to disqualify him on Tuesday morning.

“The AGC received an unsealed copy on Monday at 6.30pm and by that time no one was in the office. After receiving the sealed copy yesterday, we replied to Anwar’s affidavit by submitting my affidavit, which is 26 pages, and others within four hours,” he said.

At this juncture, Court of Appeal judge Aziah Ali indicated they had not received the prosecution’s reply when the case was called, and Shafee replied that they only managed to get a sealed copy this morning and submitted the required papers.

Sitting with Justice Aziah on the three member-panel were Justices Rohana Yusof and Mohd Zawawi Salleh, who indicated they would need time to look at the reply.

Thomas indicated that they will have to reply to the affidavit since they just received it today, and he had not gone through Shafee’s reply.

“Hence, we apply that the hearing of the application to disqualify Shafee be adjourned,” said the senior lawyer.

However, that reply seemed to have riled up Shafee, who insisted he had some issues on this and that the court should hear the application.

He pointed out that as Justices Rohana and Mohd Zawawi were aware, Anwar had been coming up with applications at the last minute.

Thomas replied that former Kuala Lumpur CID chief Mat Zain Ibrahim had made public his statutory declaration only recently, and the affidavit-in-reply could not be completed by tomorrow as Anwar was overseas.

Prosecution’s appeal postponed as Karpal hospitalised

The hearing into the prosecution's appeal against the acquittal of Anwar in the Sodomy II case, which had been fixed for today, will also be heard on Dec 19 when case management is held.

Anwar’s lawyer Karpal Singh was not at today's proceedings, as he has been warded at Hospital Kuala Lumpur since Dec 7.

Ramkarpal Singh (left), who also appeared for Anwar in the appeal, told the court that his father is having a lung ailment.

“We do not know when he will be discharged from  hospital, maybe Friday or Saturday. After that, he will need time to recover, probably two weeks,” Ramkarpal said.

Despite this, Shafee wanted the case to proceed as soon as possible, even to the point of having it heard on Friday or next week, as it has taken so long.

However, Thomas stressed that Anwar’s application to remove Shafee must be heard first before the appeal proper, and this led the court to fix next Thursday to hear the application. It also fixed the same date for case management.

Also appearing with Thomas were Latheefa Koya and Sivarasa Rasiah, while DPPs Mohd Hanafiah Zakaria and Noorin Badaruddin appeared with Shafee.

After the court session, parties met the judges in chambers and Shafee told reporters outside that the court ordered Anwar has to be present in every proceeding.

However lawyer Ramkarpal said the court had asked Anwar who is away in Washington to be present on Dec 19, but denied it was an order.

Certain revelations

It was reported last Saturday that Anwar had filed an application to remove Shafee from leading the prosecution on grounds of certain revelations that Mat Zain made in his statutory declaration.

Mat Zain has sent copies of his SD to prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, Solicitor-General Idrus Harun, Chief Secretary to the government Ali Hamsa and Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar.

The former top cop revealed in his SD a meeting he attended with Shafee, at which former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was also present, where Gani’s alleged misconduct resulting in the loss of Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore was discussed.

Mat Zain was last Thursday questioned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on the revelation in his SD that money was transferred to a foreign bank account following the Pulau Batu Puteh loss in 2008.

Anwar was on Jan 9 acquitted by the High Court in Kuala Lumpur of sodomising his former aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, at the Desa Damansara condominium.