Not a single piece of evidence provided by defence witnesses in ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial was properly considered by the trial judge when the case was heard four years ago, the Federal Court heard today.

Anwar's lead counsel Christopher Fernando, on the third day of the crucial appeal, said High Court judge Arifin Jaka (now at Court of Appeal) had treated each and every defence witness as unreliable, untruthful and undeserving of any credence.

"This was unbecoming of a judge as the law states that every witness is entitled to credence, unless it is proven that he/she is unreliable," added the lawyer.

He said it was also unfortunate for the Court of Appeal to give a blanket approval to Justice Arifin's findings without any proper analysis.

Fernando said that among the witnesses called by the defence was American citizen Jamal Abdul Rahman and former commando Raja Kamaruddin Abdul Wahid, who both spoke on the attempts by political figures to draft them into a conspiracy to topple Anwar.

"Through these witnesses we managed to prove that attempts were made to procure fabricated evidence against the appellant (Anwar). These two witnesses refuse to sell their souls. They were men of honour as they had refused to give false evidence despite the monetary gain offered to them," said the lawyer.

Anwar's lawyers say the corruption and sodomy charges against Anwar were fabricated to prevent him from challenging Mahathir politically.

"These were trumped up charges to destroy one of Malaysia's illustrious sons," Fernando said. "They went to enormous lengths."

Abdul Gani leaves courtroom

Fernando spent the best part of the day submitting on Anwar's last bid to appeal against the nine-year jail sentence imposed by Arifin in August 2000 after the politician was found guilty of sodomising Azizan Abu Bakar, who was his wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail's driver.

His conviction and sentence were later upheld by the Court of Appeal.

The appeal is being heard by a three-member Federal Court panel - Abdul Hamid Mohamad, Rahmah Hussein and Tengku Baharudin Shah Tengku Mahmud.

Anwar's co-accused and adopted brother Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja, who was jailed six years and ordered to be whipped four times for abetting Anwar, is also appealing.

If their appeals fail, Anwar will remain in jail until 2014 - athough he could be out by 2009 given the standard two-third remission for good behaviour - while Sukma will face the whipping penalty.

In his submissions, Fernando also alleged that the Mahathir-led conspiracy had also involved two senior prosecutors, including the present attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail.

He claimed that Abdul Gani's conduct in handling the trial proved that he was part of the plan to procure and use false evidence against Anwar.

"The learned AG had breached all rules of evidence when he was re-examining the prosecution's star witness Azizan Abu Bakar by putting words into the mouth of the witness, who under cross-examination by me had given three different and conflicting evidence against the appellant," he said.

As Fernando continued making his submission on the involvement of Abdul Gani, the AG was seen leaving the courtroom.

Judge and Mahathir's son

Earlier, Anwar's other counsel Karpal Singh submitted that Arifin ( left ) had erred by not disqualifying himself from hearing the case considering his association with software development company Dataprep Berhad, where Mahathir's son was a director.

He said that Arifin should have declared his association and should have withdrawn from hearing the case to ensure that Anwar would not be prejudiced.

"There is a real danger of bias on the part of the trial judge due to his association with the prime minister's son when holding shares at the company. He should have openly declared his association and recuse himself from hearing the case," he said.

He also questioned the judge's conduct in dismissing the defence's attempt to call Mahathir as a defence witness.

"The judge held that if Dr Mahathir comes to court, he would not be able to provide relevant evidence to the sodomy case. When I asked him how would he know that, the judge threatened to hold me in contempt. This showed that he went out of his way to protect the then prime minister."

He said the matter was compounded by the fact that judges' promotion - where Arifin was promoted to the Court of Appeal last June - were made with advice of the prime minister.

"There is a suspicion of likelihood of bias on the part of the judge. The Court of Appeal was wrong not to have appreciated this point in dismissing our client's appeal."

Hearing continues tomorrow.