PARLIAMENT Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the government could not grant jailed PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim house arrest as the law prohibited it.

"On the proposal to move Anwar out from Sungai Buloh Prison and to have him under house arrest at his Bukit Segambut residence, this could not be done as there is no law on this," he said.

He was responding to Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (PKR-Permatang Pauh) in a parliamentary written reply yesterday.

Wan Azizah has asked the government to allow Anwar be placed under house arrest.

She also demanded the government allow her husband to receive treatment oversea on humanitarian grounds, just like the Maldives government had allowed its former President Mohamed Nasheed to be treated in United Kingdom.

On this, Ahmad Zahid, who answered in his capacity as home minister, said the country's laws only stipulated a prisoner only be treated in public hospitals, not private hospitals or overseas.

"We have the expertise and adequate equipment in government hospitals which are as good as overseas," he said.

Anwar's lawyers had first come out with the idea of house arrest few days after he was convicted on Feb 10, 2015.

N. Surendran and Latheefa Koya had said that Anwar should be treated as a "prisoner of conscience" and not an ordinary convict.

The Myanmar military regime placed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest instead of sending her to an ordinary jail, they argued.

His lawyer Sivarasa Rasiah had again raised up the issues following the deterioration of Anwar's health.