The Court of Appeal concurred with High Court judge Augustine Paul's decision to accept amendment to the four charges of corruption against sacked former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim midway through the trial.

The appellate judges today in a written judgment said they concurred with judge Paul's view that "the amendment was to avoid duplicity and not as contended by the learned counsel for the appellant in that the prosecution at the end of its case could not prove the charges."

While Court of Appeal president Lamin Yunus took a mere minute to read a summary judgement in two paragraphs rejecting the appeals by Anwar for both conviction on four corruption charges and a six-year sentence, reporters were later given copies of the judgement running into 59 pages. ("[#1] Court dismisses Anwar's corruption appeal[/#] ", April 29-30)

The judgement dated April 29, and signed by Lamin, recalled evidence given by some key witnesses, and submissions by both prosecution and defence before justice Paul, who on April 14, 1999 delivered the verdict that Anwar was guilty of four corruption charges by having abused his power while in office.

(Two other judges who sat with Lamin were Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and Mokhtar Hj. Sidin.)

On the question of amendment to the original charges against Anwar in the middle of the trial by Paul, Lamin's judgment read that: "...Raja Aziz (Addruse, lead defence counsel) concede that the Attorney-General has the right to do so within the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code.

"According to him, under the original charges the prosecution had to prove the truth of the allegations (on acts of sodomy committed by Anwar).

"The reason for amending the charges, he contended, was because at the end of the prosecution case, the prosecution could not prove the truth of the allegations.

"Under the amended charges, the prosecution maintained that the question of the truth or falsity of the allegations would not be relevant."

Lamin said that the appeal judges "are in complete agreement with the learned judge (Paul) that the reason for making the amendment was to avoid duplicity..."

"On the amended charges the prosecution, amongst other things was required to prove only as to the existence of the allegations of sexual misconduct and sodomy.

"Being in the nature of 'allegations' the truth or falsity of the commission of the acts alleged is certainly not relevant and therefore no proof of one or the other would be required upon the charges being amended."

The appeal judges also referred to the submission by lead defence counsel Aziz that there was a political conspiracy to get rid of the appellant.

"May we say from the outset that there is no impediment under the Federal Constitution if the Prime Minister decides to revoke the appointment of any member of the Cabinet. In other words it does not require a political conspiracy nor does it require a conviction for a criminal offence as a ground to revoke the appointment," the judgment read.

On the matter of sentencing, the appeal judges noted that Anwar's counsel did not wish to make a plea in mitigation.

"...we fail to understand his (Anwar's) attitude and now the learned judge (Paul) is literally being accused of having failed to consider certain mitigating circumstances."

The judgement also referred to key witnesses Ummi Hafilda Ali and Azizan Abu Bakar, who had written letters to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad complaining of sexual misconduct of then deputy prime minister Anwar.

The judgement read that "What they (Ummi and Azizan) did was making allegations against the personal conduct of the appellant. The appellant had no business to direct or ask the police to detain them.

"He (Anwar) could just at the outset either write a personal letter demanding an apology or refer the matter to a solicitor or just lodge a police report and let the legal process take care of it and bring it to its logical conclusion."