The disclosure of details about former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's alleged sexual advances towards his aide was to help convince the public that the judiciary was right to convict him, said former special prosecutor Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

He told the Kuala Lumpur High Court today that even the courts had acknowledged that victim Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan would not have been able to go into the level of detail as he had unless he had indeed went through the experience.

“ It is important to go into the details of what the Federal Court had meant in order to demonstrate to the laymen these basic facts.

“ Otherwise, they would become victims of propaganda that this is a persecution and a conspiracy (against Anwar),” he told the judge Hanipah Farikullah.

He said this during re-examination by his counsel Kamarul Hisham who asked him to explain his talk at a forum organised by Umno Youth in Kelana Jaya in February last year shortly after the Federal Court upheld Anwar's sodomy conviction.

Shafee added that there had also been allegations that Anwar's DNA which was found in Saiful's intimate parts had been planted there.

By explaining the details of how Anwar's DNA had ended up in Saiful's intimate parts, the public could understand the truth of the matter, he said.

During cross-examination earlier by the lawyer Porres Royan, Shafee denied that he had disclosed these details to titillate the audience.

Instead, he said it was to debunk the Bar Council's objections to the Federal Court decision.

“ I explained it to the audience in a clinical fashion, although it was gory,” he added.

Today is the fourth and last day of Shafee's cross-examination and the beginning of his re-examination.

The hearing will continue tomorrow with testimonies from one of the defendants, lawyer Tommy Thomas, and possibly two witnesses.

Apart from Thomas, Shafee is also suing former Court of Appeal judge VC George, the Malaysian Bar and former Bar Council president Christopher Leong.

'AG's permission not needed'

His suit was to stop Thomas and George from tabling a motion at the Malaysian Bar annual general meeting on March 13 last year calling for Shafee to be brought to the Bar's disciplinary board for the road-shows and interviews that he had given after securing Anwar's conviction.

Among the issues to be decided at the ongoing hearing is whether the details of Anwar's supposed sexual advances constitute in-camera evidence hence making Shafee's public disclosure contempt of court.

Shafee today also dismissed insinuations that Anwar was incapable of defending himself from any disparaging remarks made against him since he is serving a five-year prison sentence for his sodomy conviction.

He pointed out that even though Anwar was in prison, his daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar had read out Anwar's statement during a parliamentary sitting in March last year.

Shafee, however, admitted that he did not have written permission from then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail to issue a statement about Anwar's sodomy trial.

This pertains to a statement issued by Shafee at the Palace of Justice lobby immediately after the Federal Court upheld Anwar's conviction.

Shafee said such permission from the attorney-general was unnecessary since he had been in constant e-mail and phone communication with Gani.

“ There's no need. I'm in constant communication by e-mail and phone with the AG,” he said.

When asked whether he had the e-mail giving him permission to issue the statement, Shafee said he was unsure but is convinced he had Gani's permission via phone or e-mail.

Shafee also clarified his remark 'Who cares what the court described?' which he uttered during the first day of the hearing last week.

He said the remark was made amid a series of questions from defence counsel Ambiga Sreenevasan and was not meant to be an adverse remark against the court.

He explained that what he meant was that he did not have to take the Federal Court's findings at face value when explaining it to a lay audience.