The defence team in Anwar Ibrahim's appeal hearing today lashed out at the prosecution for oppressing the former deputy prime minister and his co-accused Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaa Madja in the sodomy trial of 1999-2000.

Sukma's lawyer Gobind Singh Deo claimed that the prosecution acted in bad faith when it amended the sodomy charge after being notified of Sukma's alibi notice and then immediately opposed the defence's request for an adjournment to file a fresh alibi.

Apart from that, he said the prosecution was trying to make it difficult for the defence by alleging that the offence was committed between a 90-day time frame - making it almost impossible for the defence.

"The act was unfair as the defence had to put up a considerable amount of time and effort to find out information that could have been easily available for the prosecution had they investigated o­n our client's alibi as we had requested at the start of the trial," said Gobind.

AG's conduct questioned

He also questioned former Attorney-General Mohtar Abdullah's conduct when the latter announced that there was no need to investigate the Anwar's alibi as the prosecution had known Anwar's whereabouts between 1992 and 1998.

Despite the statement, Gobind said the prosecution offered no information to the defence.

"For the AG to come up and say he was aware of everything and then remain silent and refuse us to submit a fresh notice of alibi smacks of oppression to the case," he said.

Anwar and Sukma are appealing against the High Court's decision o­n Aug 8, 2000. Anwar was sentenced to nine years' jail for sodomising Azizan Abu Bakar, the former driver of his wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

Anwar's co-accused Sukma was also found guilty and sentenced to six years' jail.

The hearing is before Justices Pajan Singh Gill, Hashim Mohd Yusof and Richard Malanjum. Anwar's defence team ended their submissions yesterday.

Gobind also said that Mohtar's statement (of knowing Anwar's whereabouts between 1992 and 1998) was unfair to Sukma.

"So he claims he knows about Anwar. But what about Sukma. He's part of the case too. What about his rights? They (the prosecution) tend to forget that Sukma is the co-accused in this case. He is a victim of circumstances, caught in the bid to kill Anwar's political career," he said.

Record of movements

As Gobind submitted further o­n the alibi issue, justice Malanjum questioned whether the defence was given any records of Anwar's movement to which the lawyer said no.

However, AG Abdul Gani Patail said the records, in particular Anwar's diaries, were made available to the defence.

At this point, Anwar stood up from the dock to explain that he was given several copies of his personal diaries except the diary in question - the 1993 diary which was confiscated by the police during his 1998 arrest.

"However, the personal diary would not have contained details about my movements. The details of my movements are kept by the police as I was always under police escort during my ministerial years especially after I became the Finance Minister."

"Those details are recorded by the police at the house as well as the ADC . Those records have never been given to me," said Anwar.

When Gani clarified that the 1993 diary was never found, Gobind said: "That means the AG was lying. How could he have known Anwar's movement if they did not have the diary."

To this justice Pajan told Gobind not to make such assumptions stating: "They said that they had the records of movement and the records is not constrained to o­nly diaries."

Continuing his submission, Gobind said High Court judge Arifin Jaka was wrong in concluding that the defence had failed to conclusively prove their alibi when there is more than sufficient evidence to show that the offence could not have been committed during the time alleged by the prosecution.

"Although it was hard for us to come up with the alibi defence, we managed. We managed because the alleged incident never happened. It was pure fabrication and the errors and discrepancies in the trial proved it to be so," he added.

Picture of anus

He said the judge never considered the fact that the prosecution had never rebutted any of the evidence provided by the defence.

"In this trial it was the defence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they are innocent and nothing less would suffice," said Gobind.

He also questioned the prosecution's conduct in submitting a picture of Sukma's anus as part of their evidence.

"This is the first time that the prosecution had submitted a picture of the accused's anus instead of the victim's. They had also submitted the accused's medical report but none o­n the alleged victim. Even such a ridiculous act by the prosecution was not considered by the court," he said.

Gobind's submission concluded the defence's case. The prosecution will reply o­n Monday.