The Court of Appeal was told that Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail ( photo ) has never denied the allegation that he had attempted to obtain false evidence against ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, who is appealing against a conviction for sodomy.

Lead counsel Christopher Fernando said the absence of any denial by Abdul Gani cast doubts o­n the latter's conduct, especially when he had been part of the prosecution team during the sodomy trial.

Anwar is appealing against High Court judge Ariffin Jaka's decision o­n Aug 8, 2000 which sentenced him to nine years in jail for sodomising Azizan, the former driver of Anwar's wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail .

The hearing is being held before justices Pajan Singh Gill, Hashim Mohd Yusof and Richard Malanjum. If Anwar fails to set aside the conviction, he may have to remain in prison until 2009.

Anwar had been charged with his adopted brother Indonesian Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja. They were alleged to have committed the offence at the latter's apartment in Tivoli Villas, Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur at 7.45pm between January and March 1993.

(Sukma was jailed six years and ordered to be whipped six times. He has yet to serve his sentence as he has been allowed bail pending the disposal of his appeal.)

Pattern detected

Fernando told the court that, up to today, Abdul Gani

has yet to respond to the allegation made by senior lawyer Manjeet Singh Dhillon who testified that Abdul Gani was o­ne of two senior prosecutors who had tried to extort evidence from his client S Nallakarupan.

Fernando submitted that Manjeet's testimony (in which he made the allegations against Gani) was part of the evidence produced by Anwar to show "a pattern of concerted efforts to procure false evidence against him".

"Dr Munawar Anees (Anwar's former speech writer) provided gory details in his statutory declaration o­n how he was subjected to mental and physical torture by the police who wanted him to give false evidence against the appellant (Anwar)," he said

He said Munawar ( photo ) had to give in to the "inhumane treatment" and was finally forced to make a false admission that he was sodomised by Anwar.

"This is a classic turn over process. There is an evil plot to procure Anwar's conviction by devious means. They had to do all this because they had to bring down o­ne of Malaysia's most illustrious sons," said Fernando.

He said that the "evil plot" was not o­nly confined to Malaysia but extended as far as the US, as revealed in the testimony of American Jamal Amro who claimed that he was offered money by o­ne Mustapha o­ng to give false evidence against Anwar.

However, Fernando said the trial judge had failed to give proper weight to all the evidence and had instead ruled that the defence had failed to cast reasonable doubt o­n the prosecution's case.

"The judge erred in not giving proper consideration to the evidence. He should have viewed the statutory declaration with the evidence given under oath but he chose to simply ignore the evidence," he said.

'High standard'

Fernando also said that Arifin had erred by imposing a high standard when assessing Sukma's notice of alibi.

He said the judge was obviously o­n a "fault-finding mission" when he scrutinised Sukma's alibi in which Sukma claimed that he could not have committed the offence, as his apartment was under renovation between January and February 1993.

"Instead of giving the defence the benefit of the doubt, the judge said he failed to find any evidence adduced by Sukma o­n his whereabouts between January and March 1993. But evidence proved that Anwar was away for the whole month of March. So what was the judge trying to adduce? That Sukma was doing it o­n his own?" said Fernando.

He said the judge had expected the defence to produce conclusive evidence to prove its case and this was "gross misdirection" by the judge.

"Whenever there is a doubt, the benefit should be given to the defence. But in this case, the judge had given it to the prosecution. o­n this ground alone, the judge's decision ought to be reversed," he said.

Laughter in court

Instead of properly evaluating the defence case, Arifin preferred to base his conviction o­n the vague assertion of Azizan Abu Bakar the alleged victim, who he said "did not even remember where the offence was committed".

"The judge kept repeating in mantra-like (fashion) that Azizan was a credible witness. I submit that this is what was going o­n in his mind: He was unsure of everything. He had to convince himself that Azizan was a reliable witness. He repeated it so many times that he eventually believed it.".

"In fact in the judge had said in his judgment that Azizan's evidence was as strong as the rock of Gibraltar. This statement should have entered the Guinness Book of Records for the most exaggerated opinion ever," said Fernando which drew laughter from the public gallery.

Fernando will continue with his submission tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Anwar received a surprise visit from PAS acting president and Terengganu Mentri Besar Abdul Hadi Awang during a 30-minute tea break this morning.

Anwar, wearing a neck brace, was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair and was given a special chair in the dock.