The High Court in Kuala Lumpur today fixed Oct 5 to hear an application by the government to strike out former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's bid to set aside his Sodomy II conviction, on the grounds that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had purportedly paid RM9.5 million to lawyer Shafee Abdullah, who was the prosecutor in his case.

Anwar's lawyer Shahid Adli Kamarudin and Eric Paulsen said Justice Azizah Nawawi fixed the date during the case management.

According to Shahid, they had asked for a date earlier than Oct 5 but this was objected by the senior federal counsel who appeared for the government.

Earlier this month, in applying for the striking out of Anwar's discovery application, Najib's lawyer likened the latter's bid to a "fishing expedition".

Last month, Anwar had filed an application to set aside his Sodomy II conviction in light of the alleged RM9.5 million payout made by Najib to Shafee via two payments.

In his discovery application, he sought for Najib to reveal statements from any bank account he possessed, between Aug 2013 and Oct 2013, and Jan 2014 to March 2014, especially in relation to the alleged payments of RM4.3 million and RM5.2 million to Shafee on Sept 11, 2013, and Feb 17, 2014, respectively.

He also sought Shafee's financial statements from the same period.

Meanwhile, at another High Court in Kuala Lumpur today, Justice Nik Hasmat Nik Mohamad fixed Oct 6 to hear the government's application to strike out an earlier bid by Anwar to set aside his conviction on the grounds that it had relied on fabricated DNA evidence.

Anwar claimed that the fabricated DNA sample was used to support evidence from complainant Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan and that the government had the intention to injure him by placing Saiful as a truthful witness and the evidence against him was perjured.