Anwar jailed on trumped-up charges in unfair trial: lawyer
A counsel for former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim today told the Federal Court that the latters six-year jail sentence for corruption was based on trumped-up charges brought up in an unfair trial.
The conduct of the High Court trial as well as the Appeal Court was very unfair to him from the very beginning. Every possible concoction that can be made against Anwar was made, said lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah.
Sulaiman also censured the prosecution team led by the then attorney-general, Mohtar Abdullah, for arbitrarily amending the charges in Anwars 1998 corruption trial. He said the changes were amended to confuse the defence.
It was a criminal trial and the onus was on the prosecution to prove all the ingredients of the case but all we had to do was to cast reasonable doubt on one of them and all those charges would have collapsed.
When they changed the charges though, it was as if they had moved the goal post and changed the entire complexion of the case. The reality of the situation is that they had to concoct everything to remove him, Sulaiman said.
He was submitting at Anwars appeal against a six-year jail sentence for charges of corrupt practices.
In the 1998 trial presided over by justice S Augustine Paul, the prosecution team amended the charges in the 13th week of the hearing, changing the focus from sexual misconduct to abuse of power.
Sulaiman also accused Paul of ignoring the evidence laid before him by the defence team.
Each time we wanted to adduce evidence in court for our case, we were prevented from doing so. Our request to admit evidence was scrutinised so severely and generally refused.
A serious misdirection of law has occurred and it goes beyond a mere irregularity so we call upon the Federal Court to question Anwars conviction, Sulaiman said.
Counsel for prosecution
Earlier, another member of Anwars defence team, Raja Aziz Addruse, continuing his submission from yesterday, said that Paul had been pro-prosecution.
In the case of the prosecution, there were some activities which could have compromised the integrity of the court. An allegation was made by one of our lawyers that there was fabrication of evidence. So we had made an application to the High Court but instead of hearing it the lawyer was called up for an interrogation by the judge, Raja Aziz said.
The lawyer concerned, Zainur Zakaria, was cited for contempt by Paul for alleging that the prosecution had coerced Anwars tennis partner S Nallakarupan to obtain evidence prejudicial to him.
Anwar subsequently applied for the disqualification of both Abdul Gani Patail and Azahar Mohamad, both of whom were then serving as senior deputy public prosecutors. Anwars defence team singled them out as being responsible for the fabrication.
Zainur was sentenced to three months jail by Paul but that decision was overturned by the Federal Court last June. One of the three judges then, Chief Judge of the High Courts of Sabah and Sarawak Steve Shim Lip Kiong, had also said that Pauls action in the contempt proceeding was like he was counsel for prosecution.
Gani asked to step out
When Raja Aziz submitted on this matter, he also requested Attorney-General Abdul Gani to step out of the court room for fear that what he was to submit would embarrass Abdul Gani.
I think Raja Aziz has been very kind not to mention my name but as it stands there have been some questions raised. Perhaps when Raja Aziz submits on this I can be excused, Abdul Gani said.
Maybe you can wait in the library, Chief Justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah quipped.
Justice Dzaiddin was assisted by Shim and Federal Court judge Haidar Mohd Noor.
Anwars other counsel were Sankara Nair, Christopher Fernando Gurbachan Singh, Pawancheek Merican, Kamar Ainiah Kamaruzaman and Zulkifli Noordin.
Others in the prosecution were Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden, Tun Majid Hamzah, Nordin Hassan and Shamsul Sulaiman.
The hearing continues tomorrow at 9am.
Anwar is also serving a nine-year jail sentence for sodomy.
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