Former Bar Council president Raja Aziz Addruse will now head the defence team in Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial.

The prominent lawyer replaces Sulaiman Abdullah, another former Bar Council president, who has excused himself due to health reasons.

raja aziz addruse interview judiciary crisis 060808 03 Raja Aziz is also one of the three Malaysians to have been appointed commissioner of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists.

He will be joined by an all-star cast of lawyers including Param Cumaraswamy (former UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers), DAP chairperson Karpal Singh and CV Prabakharan.

All other existing legal team members will remain as before.

“In making this announcement, our client, his wife and his family would like to express their deepest and most sincere gratitude to Sulaiman for having rendered exemplary services to our client and would like to wish him all the best,” Anwar's lawyer Sankara Nair said in a statement today.

Anwar’s trial is scheduled to resume on Sept 2 with an application for a judicial review to quash a written statement by the prosecution.

Anwar is appealing against a High Court order which prevents him from obtaining documents from the prosecution that are he deems crucial to his defence.

Anwar, 62, is accused of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 24, at a condominium in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur on June 26 last year.