After hearing the longest criminal appeal, the Federal Court announced that it would defer delivering its judgment on Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy appeal.

Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria, who heads the five-member bench, thanked both the defence and prosecution for their submissions.

"After looking at the submissions and the voluminous authorities and case laws cited, the court will be delivering its judgment on a date to be fixed.

"The court extends the appellant's (Anwar) bail," he told the packed courtroom.

Today's session only lasted for about 35 minutes, starting shortly after 3pm with Anwar's lead defence counsel Gopal Sri Ram continuing his submissions.

He argued that since Anwar's release from prison in 2004, the opposition leader has been hounded by the prosecution, and this led to his claim of a conspiracy.

"The appellant was charged with a similar offence in 1998 based on a questionable testimony by the main witness of which the Federal Court acquitted him with a majority 2-1 judgment.

"He was charged again for a similar offence with a different person. Anwar has been hounded by the prosecution in this case on the strength of a witness whose evidence cannot stand up to the truth," the former Federal Court judge submitted.

Government-appointed prosecutor Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who initially said he would reply to the points raised by the defence, only submitted case laws to the five judges.

Unlike the Court of Appeal, which only took two days to convict and sentence Anwar to five years jail, the Federal Court had allowed the hearing to continue for eight days since Oct 28.

Initially, there was speculation that there could be a verdict today following two of the judges, including Justice Arifin, to be absent next week.

Justice Arifin is slated to go overseas.

With this, it would be interesting to see when the apex court would deliver its decision as initial speculation suggested that the appeal and decision would be concluded before the Umno general assembly which begins on Nov 22.

Besides Justice Arifin, the bench also comprises his number two, Court of Appeal president Justice Md Raus Sharif, and Federal Court judges Abdull Hamid Embong, Suriyadi Halim Omar and Ramly Ali.

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