Former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's defence that there was a conspiracy to end his political career with trumped-up criminal charges - which eventually saw him being convicted and jailed for sodomy - must be rejected as there is no evidence to back his claim, the Federal Court heard today.

Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail argued that no credible evidence had been presented by the defence which, he said, had only managed to put forward arguments consisting mainly of 'hearsay and unreliable documents'.

He said the defence had failed to link the prosecution's star witness Azizan Abu Bakar with the conspirators allegedly led by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Anwar's defence, he added, which claimed that Azizan - formerly a driver to Anwar's wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail - was bribed to fabricate evidence, including that he was made a company director, was merely speculative.

"The submissions are without merit. There is no evidence the alleged conspirators were behind this company.

"In fact, after a futile attempt by the counsel to link the company to (ex-Malacca chief minister) Abdul Rahim Tamby Chik, there was no serious attempt by them to substantiate the allegation of bribery to lend credence to their submission," said Abdul Gani.

The attorney-general, who is leading the prosecution team, was submitting against Anwar's last bid to appeal against the nine-year jail sentence imposed by the High Court in August 2000 after the politician was found guilty of sodomising Azizan.

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

'No link' argument

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 - although he could be out by 2009 given the standard two-third remission for good behaviour - while Sukma will also face the whipping penalty.

Anwar had maintained throughout his lower court trials that he was a victim of a political conspiracy to prevent him from challenging Mahathir. The government has dismissed this claim.

Earlier, senior deputy public prosecutor Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden in his submissions argued that the trial judge had correctly dealt with the defence witnesses called to prove the existence of a conspiracy to fabricate evidence against Anwar.

Yusof said that none of those witnesses' testimonies could be linked directly to Anwar's sodomy charge.

Referring to defence witness Raja Kamaruddin Abdul Wahid who had named Mahathir's former political secretary Aziz Shamsuddin as one of alleged conspirators, Yusof said: "The witness merely said that Aziz told him that the reason why Anwar must be toppled was because he was a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) agent and that he had no knowledge of financial matters."

"No evidence whatsoever was given by this witness on the fabrication of evidence for the sodomy trial," said Yusof.

Affidavits tendered

As to lawyer Manjeet Singh Dhillion testifying that two senior prosecutors then - Abdul Gani and Azahar Mohamed - had tried to procure fabricated evidence against Anwar through his (Manjeet's) client S Nallakaruppan, Yusof argued this 'was baseless and unjustifiable'.

"He (Manjeet) himself admitted that the allegations against the two prosecutors were his own deduction and opinion following a conversation with the two," he said.

At this juncture, Yusof attempted to refer to affidavits by Abdul Gani and Azahar but this was rejected by the court following an objection by Anwar's lead counsel Christopher Fernando.

"The prosecution had never averred to the affidavits during the trial and they cannot now suddenly bring out the documents to counter our submissions that Manjeet's claims against Abdul Gani and Azahar were never rebutted," said Fernando.

The bench agreed with him stating that the prosecution would be adducing new evidence if they were allowed to refer to the two affidavits.

Meanwhile, Abdul Gani also argued as 'baseless' the defence's contention that Azizan's credibility had been shaken following various discrepancies in his testimony under cross-examination.

"Forgetfulness and failure to recall exactly certain events, which do not seem to be important to the witness, do not necessarily shake his credibility or render other parts of his story unworthy of belief," said the attorney-general.

He pointed out that despite the discrepancies, Azizan had been consistent in his evidence that he had been sodomised at Tivoli Villa in Kuala Lumpur one night between January and March1993.

"So long as the discrepancies do not detract from the witness' testimony, it would proper for the court to disregard the discrepancies as trivial and ignore them," he added.

'Loose association'

As to the defence's contention that there was a serious misdirection by the trial judge in rejecting an application to call Mahathir to the witness stand, Abdul Gani said the decision was proper as the ex-premier would not have been able to give relevant evidence.

He also said there was no need for Arifin (Jaka, the trial judge then, now Court of Appeal) to disqualify himself from hearing the trial (as requested by the defence) because of his past association with the Mahathir's son through a company, Dataprep Holdings Sdn Bhd.

"It is grossly inadequate and manifestly unsafe to allege bias on the part of the judge by relying on this loose association of facts," he said.

Abdul Gani also urged the court to disregard Sukma's claim that his confession (which contained Anwar's alleged sexual misbehaviour) was made involuntary.

The fact that Sukma had tendered his confession as part of his mitigation in another case (where he was jailed six months for allowing Anwar to sodomise him) proved that it was made voluntarily, he added.

"After tendering the confession as mitigation, they (the defence) cannot now say that it was not done voluntarily. That is not being honest, that is not being true and that's not right," he said.

The defence will present their counter-submissions tomorrow.