PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim today demanded that Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar retract, publicly apologise and pay RM100 million for calling him a 'tukang lapor' (snitch) for the United States.

anwar ibrahim 02 060207 The demands were made in a letter faxed to the minister’s office by Anwar’s lawyer Sankara Nair at 1pm. Syed Hamid had been given 48 hours to respond.

In the letter, Anwar said the words uttered by Syed Hamid, as reported in the Star newspaper on July 3, indicated that he was a "traitor and disloyal to the country, religion and race."

He also stated that the words meant that he was unfit to be prime minister or a national leader and that he was an American puppet.

syed hamid albar On July 2, Syed Hamid had called Anwar an US 'snitch' while responding to a caution from Washington with regards to the fresh sodomy allegations against the opposition stalwart.

"Anwar is a tukang lapor (snitch) to America. Every time when something happens, he reports to the US. I thought he wants to be our country's leader...why ask advice from foreign countries?" said the minister.

On July 8, Syed Hamid clarified that he did not call Anwar an ‘American spy’ but rather a ‘snitch’.

At a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Sankara said Syed Hamid's statement had made him 'libelous.'

"Even though there has been some clarification (from him), it still does not remove the sting from what he has said and we believe otherwise," he said.

He said Anwar is seeking an apology and immediate retraction of all the words or the minister must be prepared to face the legal repercussions.

"It (the statement) also should not be repeated. We have given him 48 hours to do so, failing which we will institute legal proceedings," he added.

'Police flip-flop'

Meanwhile, Sankara also urged the police to immediately provide a copy of the June 28 police report made by Anwar’s former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhary Azlan who accused the politician of sodomising him.

He claimed that the police had ‘flip-flopped’ on their decision to provide Anwar's counsels with a copy of the report.

Anwar’s representative had sent two reminders on June 30 and July 1 respectively asking the police to furnish them with a copy of the police report.

On July 2, the police denied the request in a letter sent to the representative, who in turn filed an appeal on the same day.

"We sent another appeal on the same day (July 2) but only after Anwar's press conference later that day did the police respond and told us that it was okay for us to collect the report," said Sankara.

sankara nair The next day, Sankara said he received a fax from the Brickfields district police headquarters saying that a copy of the report cannot be made available to him because of the on-going investigation.

"Why couldn't they cite the on-going investigation in the previous letter? This raises a lot of suspicion and speculation as to why the police had a sudden change of mind.

"It does not work well for the police’s reputation as they are an independent body. This is a public document. Interested parties can apply for it under the law, just as you apply for an accident report," he said.

Sankara also said that the exact contents of the police report remain unknown to Anwar’s counsels who are therfore unable to advice him accordingly.

"We can't expect Anwar to make a police statement when the police calls him up at the last minute. It is then too late to advice him and that is not fair to our client."