Shouldn't a third party decides on whether the judge is fit to be on this case....

It took just 40 minutes for the Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah to decide to dismiss Anwar Ibrahim"s application to recuse him.

This came after the court had earlier spent one-and-a-half hours to listen to the submissions from senior lawyer Karpal Singh and solicitor-general II Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden.

In arriving at his decision, Justice Zabidin wrote just two lines: "The application (by Anwar) has no merits and hence this application is dismissed."

After earlier hesitations, Justice Zabidin allowed the defence application for a stay of hearing pending a decision on an appeal against his ruling open the recuse application."Following this, the court fixes July 13 for the case to be mentioned," he said.

The defence gave an undertaking that it would file the notice of appeal by this afternoon.

This is the third unsuccessful bid by Anwar to have Justice Zabidin disqualified from hearing his sodomy case.

This follows the judge's order to Anwar to make his defence, after finding that the complainant, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, was a "credible and truthful witness".

source:malaysiakini