A spontaneous street party erupted yesterday evening as thousands of supporters gathered outside the home of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim after he was released from six years in jail.

Hawkers set up food stalls on the roadside, political activists flogged tapes of Anwar's speeches while Anwar himself told 1,000 ecstatic fans that his imprisonment was "from A to Z a political conspiracy by the powers-that-be."

The crowd spilled out of the living room of Anwar's upmarket Kuala Lumpur suburban home, with people standing on the walls trying to catch a glimpse of him as traffic backed up for a couple of kilometres after word spread that he had been released.

The crowd shouted slogans, including "Allahu Akbhar" or God is great, and "long live Anwar", while singing songs in the name of his "reformasi" movement.

Anwar told them his release showed that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over from Mahathir Mohamad, the man who sacked him six years ago, seemed interested in refoming the country's tightly-controlled political system.

"If it was Mahathir I would be finished," he said, between consultations with his doctors, who urged him to rest. "Six years is a very long time, but it is not very long if what is important is that we never waver in our struggle.

"There are signs that Pak Lah (Abdullah), is interested to bring reforms," he told the crowd in a voice hoarse with unexpected use after six years in jail.

Anwar has been in hospital for more than a month for treatment of spinal injuries he says were caused by a police beating after his arrest in 1998.

He served nearly six years in jail, completing a six-year sentence for corruption with two-thirds remission for good behaviour and beginning a nine-year term for allegedly sodomising his official driver.

Pigtails snipped off

Earlier, Anwar snipped off the pigtails of three ardent supporters who had not cut their hair for six years in protest at his imprisonment.

In a light-hearted moment, Anwar cut off waist-length pigtails from three elderly men to loud cheers from his supporters.

The politician, is expected to fly to Germany soon for surgery, sat on a chair with his feet up as the three men walked up one by one for the symbolic ceremony to celebrate his surprise release.

"I thought Anwar was a bad person but I found that I was wrong. I felt bad about it and I wanted to do something for him, so I decided to grow my hair long," said one of them, Mohamaded Rozi Osman, who is in his late 50s.