Towards the end of his time with Umno, former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim would defend his boss Dr Mahathir Mohamad in public, but criticise him in private, said a party veteran.

"He would openly defend (Mahathir), but in private or among his close friends and political friends, he would criticise Mahathir from government policies, to his race.

"He always referred to Mahathir as 'mamak tak boleh percaya', 'untrustworthy mamak'," Umno's Lenggeng assemblyperson Ishak Ismail wrote in his witness statement in Anwar's defamation suit against Khairy Jamaluddin.

Ishak added in the statement that the term 'mamak' was at the time considered rude and insulting.

'Mamak' is a colloquial term used for Indian Muslims.

However, when Anwar's lawyer Latheefa Koya grilled Iskah on this in court today, he replied differently.

"Even I call Mahathir mamak. It's not rude, the mamak usually sell roti canai.

"It's insulting yes, but whether it's rude, that depends... It's a laughable word," Ishak said in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur today.

Defence plays betrayal card

Ishak is the defence's seventh witness in Anwar’s RM100 million defamation suit against Umno youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar.

Khairy had claimed that his impugned words did not have sexual connotations as Anwar had alleged, but had instead meant that Anwar had a tendency of "playing out" his political allies to his own advantage, to betray them.

The defence's case has been to portray Anwar as having a pattern of betraying his allies.

Latheefa highlighted that Ishak himself had criticised Mahathir when the latter was Umno president, which the assemblyperson said was acceptable if it was done in private.

Using this to draw parallels between Ishak and Anwar, Latheefa asked if criticising Mahathir privately was considered treachery or being two-faced.

Ishak responded by saying, "Why is it treachery if what I said is true?"

After the cross examination which lasted about 40 minutes, Ishak shook hands with Anwar and Khairy before leaving the court room.

The trial resumes on Dec 13.