Jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim filed two petitions of appeal against a High Court decision and trial at the Court of Appeal registry today.

The first petition of appeal was filed against judge Arifin Jaka's decision and sentencing of Anwar for sodomy on Aug 8 last year while the other was to strike out the whole proceedings of the trial.

Anwar's lawyer Sankara Nair filed the petitions with a certificate of urgency at 10.30am. He was accompanied by Anwar's wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and daughter Nurul Izzah.

Anwar stated 24 grounds of appeal in the first petition.

Among them were that the judge had erred in law when he failed to analyse the evidence of star witness Azizan Abu Bakar's admission three times that he was not sodomised by Anwar, and that he further failed to impeach Azizan when he was unable to explain the contradictions in his evidence despite being given the opportunity to do so.

Anwar also stated that Arifin gave the benefit of the doubt to the prosecution instead of the defence, which was contrary to established mandatory principles of law.

"The decision of the learned judge and his untenable rulings and findings were clearly and patently against the weight of the evidence.

"The learned judge also failed to appreciate that the charge proffered against the appellant was false and baseless from the very fact that the charge had to be amended several times," Anwar said.

'Judge erred'

Anwar said he was also deprived of a full and fair opportunity to discredit evidence of prosecution witnesses when Arifin did not invoke an adverse inference against the prosecution when they failed to call Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, former Malacca mentri besar Rahim Thamby Chik and former police chief Rahim Noor to the witness box.

"The learned judge was in gross error both in law and in fact when he ruled that the prime minister was not a relevant witness despite the latter's direct involvement in meeting and discussing the allegations against the appellant, in particular Azizan, the prosecution's main witness," said Anwar.

He also said that Arifin had frequently and unnecessarily interrupted, shouted, threw tantrums at defence witnesses and threatened counsel with contempt proceedings throughout the trial, which created an uncongenial and strained atmosphere in the courtroom.

"The learned judge erred in making personal, unwarranted and derogatory remarks against the appellant during the course of the trial including the statement 'you are a sick man'," Anwar said.

He added that the nine-year jail sentence meted out on him was 'grossly excessive and unconscionable in all the circumstances'.

In the second appeal which contained 11 grounds, Anwar said that Arifin failed to give due consideration to the reasons given by the counsel when applying for a postponement on June 11, 1999, to reply to four affidavits filed by the respondents.

Arifin's refusal to allow a postponement for the defence to produce a crucial tape recording of a conversation between lawyer Manjit Singh Dhillon and senior deputy public prosecutor Abdul Gani Patail, had also deprived him of an opportunity which would have affected the legitimacy, legality and the outcome of the whole trial, Anwar added.

Early date

Wan Azizah later told reporters outside the courtroom that she hoped for an early date of hearing to be fixed as Anwar could not undergo long periods of waiting due to his medical condition.

"We have submitted a certificate of urgency because my husband is suffering from the pain (of a back injury) and we cannot delay this anymore," she said.

According to Sankara, Anwar has also expressed his desire to attend the hearing.

"If there is a doctor in attendance, I don't see a problem. He said, even if it is painful, he wants to come," Sankara said.

Anwar has been in custody since September 1998 and is serving a 15-year jail sentence at the Sungai Buloh prison for abuse of power and sodomy.

He was admitted to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital last November with a slipped disc, before being moved back to prison on May 10 after he rejected the government's offer of spinal surgery at the Kuala Lumpur general hospital.

Anwar has insisted that he be allowed overseas for his spinal surgery.