The Federal Court today has fixed Oct 28 and 29 to hear opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal to set aside the conviction and sentence of his Sodomy II charge and the prosecution’s cross-appeal to enhance the sentence.

The matter was decided by Court of Appeal president Justice Md Raus Sharif in chambers, where he also fixed Oct 14 to hear Anwar’s appeal to disqualify senior lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah ( right ).

This was mentioned by lawyer Ram Karpal Singh who appeared for Anwar along with N Surendran and Latheefa Koya.

Shafee was present, together with DPP Mohd Hanafiah Zakaria.

Initally the apex court wanted to fix Sept 8 and 9 to appeal but this was protested by Anwar’s lawyers who said lead counsel Sulaiman Abdullah’s medical leave is until Oct 13.

The Court of Appeal had found Anwar, who is also the Permatang Pauh MP and PKR de facto leader, guilty of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, last March and sentenced the 67-year-old to five years’ jail.

Anwar was charged with sodomising Saiful at the Desa Damansara condominium on June 26, 2008, where the Kuala Lumpur High Court initially acquitted him after finding it unsafe to find the politician guilty.

Yesterday it was reported that Saiful had filed a RM50 million suit against Anwar for defamation and the sodomy incident.

 

Today’s matter was initially fixed for case management before open court before Justice Md Raus after he delivered the decision over the Penang government’s application to hold local government elections was dismissed.

However, as Anwar’s supporters of about 50 people gathered, Justice Md Raus decided otherwise and held it in chambers instead.

‘Reformasi 2.0 to be launched’

Penang PKR Youth chief and PKR Youth aspirant deputy head Dr Afif Bahardin ( left ) said the movement will launch a Reformasi 2.0 to explain that the charge and conviction was another political ploy.

“The movement will go round the country to explain the situation in launching the Reformasi 2.0. We hope the federal government will take this seriously,” he said.

Lawyer Surendran also urged Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to drop the sodomy charge on Anwar as this is a political persecution.

“This charge must be dropped as it is an attempt to jail the opposition leader of the country. By doing this Malaysia will be a laughing stock among democratic countries,” he said.

Asked to comment on attempts by a non-governmental organisation to cite Surendran for contempt, the PKR vice-president and Padang Serai MP said there is no basis for the allegations made, including by two former inspector-generals of police.

“This is an attempt to sidetrack from the main issue which is the appeal and this being a political persecution. At no time did I commit contempt. There is no basis.

“I am not concerned with this and they can go ahead with it (the move to cite him for contempt). I want the sodomy charge dropped,” he said.