PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim does not meet the criterion of being called a political prisoner, said Foreign Minister Anifah Aman.

"The government had referred to several criteria to determine its guideline (of a political prisoner) and found that Anwar did not fit the criterion of being called a political prisoner," he said.

There is no one set definition for a political prisoner that can be used universally, he said in a written reply to Parliament yesterday.

Anifah denied that Anwar's imprisonment was politically motivated.

He was responding to Kamaruddin Jaafar (PKR-Tumpat) who asked the government's reaction to the call by United Nations-affiliated bodies that Anwar be released because his imprisonment was a political act.

Anifah said the government had already responded to the UN working group on arbitrary detention, emphasising that Anwar had been given a fair trial, and that the government had not interfered with the court's decision.

He also said that the courts had found Anwar's claims of there being a political conspiracy against him as baseless.

Anwar was jailed in February last year after the Federal Court upheld a Court of Appeal ruling that the former opposition leader was guilty of sodomy.

He was sentenced to five years in jail.