Former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's former associate S Nallakaruppan told the court today that he felt he had been betrayed and disappointed by Anwar on two occasions.

He told the Kuala Lumpur High Court that he had known Anwar since the 1980s and used to play tennis together, and later joined PKR in 2006 and was appointed as the party's Kepong division chief.

He said he was slated to contest in the Ijok by-election in April 2007, but Anwar told him on the "last minute" to make way for Abdul Khalid Ibrahim instead. Khalid is now the Pelabuhan Klang assemblyperson.

“It came at the last minute, but I have heard about it before that. I still remember his (Anwar’s) words to this day,” he told the court presided by Judicial Commissioner Azizul Azmi Adnan.

He was testifying as the fifth defence witness in Anwar’s RM100 million defamation suit against Umno youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar.

Khairy had claimed that his impugned words did not have sexual connotations as Anwar had alleged, but instead meant that Anwar had a tendency of "playing out" his political allies to his own advantage, meaning to betray them.

The defence had been portraying Anwar as having a pattern of betraying his allies, such as Nallakaruppan.

Under cross-examination by Anwar’s counsel Latheefa Koya, Nallakaruppan said he was not upset by the episode at the time, and even agreed to attend political speeches in the election campaign afterwards.

When re-examined by Khairy’s counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah however, the senator clarified that he did feel disappointed and betrayed by the episode.

Nallakaruppan testified that the second time he was betrayed was during the PKR party election immediately after the Ijok by-election ended with Khalid’s defeat.

He said he stood for vice presidency at the time. As the nomination process was still ongoing, he said he had the second most number of nominations.

At this time however in May 2007, Anwar came to him and asked him to withdraw from the contest so to give way to Mohd Azmin Ali. Azmin is now the party’s deputy president.

He said he was so upset over the matter and left the party on May 18, 2007, and refused to answer phone calls from Anwar.

This is despite Anwar (photo) having offered him an appointment for vice presidency after the party election was over.

He told the court that if he had been appointed instead of being elected to the post, that appointment can be revoked at any time.

In addition, he said he wanted to go through the election process in order to gauge his level of support and chart his political career.

“That’s where the misunderstanding (with Anwar) started, but now it is okay,” he said, while turning around at the witness stand to smile at Anwar who was seated behind him, and prompting laughter from the public gallery.

PKR not practicing what it preaches

Earlier today, the court also cross-examined and re-examined former PKR Youth secretary Lokman Noor Adam, who had given testimony during the last hearing on Tuesday.

He told the court during Latheefa’s cross-examination that he went into business after he was sacked by PKR in 2004. He then joined Umno in 2007, after the then Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad had stepped down.

However, he denied Latheefa’s suggestion that this too amounted to a betrayal against PKR, although PKR and Umno are political enemies.

When re-examined by Shafee afterwards, Lokman pointed out that there had been three years since he left PKR before he rejoined Umno.

“Because after 2007, PKR became quite strong and Umno was quite shaky at the time, so I wanted to work to ensure that (PKR) does not become the government,” he said.

He accused PKR of not practicing what it preaches, such as when the party sacked him for criticising the then PKR youth chief Mohd Ezam Noor while advocating for freedom of speech.

Lokman said although Umno had weaknesses, these can still be fixed and the party is far better than PKR.

He added that he also resented Mahathir for supposedly making disparaging remarks about Prophet Muhammad.

However, this statement was objected by Latheefa as being irrelevant to the case and unfair to Mahathir unless Mahathir is called to the stand to rebut it.

Judicial commissioner Azizul allowed the objection.

The hearing continues tomorrow with Lenggeng assemblyperson Ishak Ismail’s cross-examination.

They tendered his witness statement today as the defence’s seventh witness.