The corruption appeal of jailed former deputy premier, Anwar Ibrahim, could become the longest in Malaysia's legal history, defence counsel told malaysiakini today.

"I think this could become the longest in history. The longest one before this took only five days," Christopher Fernando said, referring to the appeal hearing which commenced Monday and today's hearing marked its fifth day.

Anwar is currently appealing against his six-year corruption conviction imposed in April last year for abusing his power in office. The hearing is presided by Court of Appeal president Lamin Yunus, Ahmad Fairus and Mokhtar Sidin.

"The notes of appeal are too lengthy," Fernando said. Defence is expected to finish their submissions by next Tuesday and Fernando said the prosecution had told the bench their submission would take one day.

Since the start of the hearing, the defence have tried to impress upon the judges "the misconstruction of the law, inconsistent directions and rulings and misconstruction of the purport of the evidence used" by judge Augustine Paul, who heard Anwar's corruption case.

"We have pointed out basically the glaring errors that the judge has fallen into."

Saying the appeal decision will most likely be deferred, Fernando said they have put up a good case. "How they (the judges) are going to justify upholding the conviction, I don't know," he said.

Meanwhile, Fernando also said they expect to file an affidavit detailing the relevance of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's evidence to Anwar's ongoing sodomy trial by next Monday.

Anwar stands trial for a separate charge of sodomy together with his adopted brother Sukma Dermawan Sasmitaat Madja. They are charged with sodomising former driver Azizan Abu Bakar "on one night between January and March 1993 at 7.45pm". Sukma is also charged with abetting and aiding Anwar to force sex on Azizan.

Anwar had repeatedly denied all charges and says they were fabricated to end his political career.