Jailed ex-deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim will be moved into a smaller cell, which is tailor-made for him in Sungai Buloh prison soon, said his lawyer Sankara Nair today.

Anwar, who is currently undergoing treatment for his chronic back pain at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital since November, will be transferred back to prison, but into a much smaller cell than the one he had before.

Both his family and his lawyers rejected such a move by the prison authorities.

"We are against the move as it will deter round-the-clock treatment which Anwar needs," Sankara told malaysiakini today.

Sankara said the smaller cell, which has water and toilet facilities, was akin to those used by the prison authorities to punish unruly prisoners or those with mental problems.

Sankara said the arrangements were made following a visit made by Home Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's political secretary Othman Desa and another official to the Sungai Buloh prison on Jan 22.

However, a Home Ministry spokesman has denied the visit to the prison was specifically related to Anwar, adding that it was a general visit.

"Despite denials by them that the visit was to facilitate Anwar's removal from the hospital to the prison, we have information that they were there to oversee the setting up of this new cell," said Sankara.

"Anwar told us that the transfer back to Sungai Buloh was imminent."

Sankara also said that the government has not decided on allowing an expert from Germany to examine Anwar here.

"The application to have the expert is not because we have no confidence in local doctors. The fact is, we don't have dedicated spine surgeons in Malaysia. The medical experts here have confirmed this fact to us," he added.

Sankara said that the German expert was an experienced doctor in endoscopic microsurgery, which is a new surgery technic that allows for a minimum risk for patients.

"The expert has conducted about 6,000 such surgeries with a 90 percent success rate."

Treatment not available locally

Sankara also commented on news reports today which quoted an American professor that Malaysia has the facilities and expertise to treat spinal-related ailments.

He said that Anwar was looking for a treatment with better surgery technics which are still not available locally.

Prof Edgar Dawson, who is from the University of California, said that spinal, orthopaedic and neuro-surgeons in Malaysia were well trained and highly skilled and thus, Malaysians no longer needed to go to New York or London for treatment for spine related ailments.