Umno lawyer wants Bar chiefs charged for ‘insulting’ judiciary over Anwar’s conviction

Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said Christopher Leong and Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan should be charged with contempt of court following their comments on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy conviction. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Najjua Zulkefli, February 17, 2015.Contempt proceedings should be initiated against the present and former Bar Council presidents for ‎insulting the judiciary over Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy conviction, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told a forum tonight.

The Umno lawyer accused current Bar Council president Christopher Leong and former president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan of misleading the public into believing that Anwar was not judged according to law despite the overwhelming evidence against the opposition leader.

"It is the worst insult ever thrown at the judiciary. It is also the worst contempt of court ever," he told a packed forum in Kelana Jaya, Selangor.

Shafee was asked to comment on the statements by Leong and Ambiga, whom had criticised the Federal Court bench for finding Anwar guilty.

Leong had said that there was public perception that Anwar was being persecuted due to "glaring anomalies" ‎for not charging the complainant Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan for the offence as well.

Ambiga, meanwhile, had said last week that Putrajaya would soon realise that it had made a mistake in sending Anwar to prison.

‎Shafee, in answering a question from the floor, said the Attorney-General (A-G) should take the initiative to charge the two prominent lawyers with contempt as he could not be seen as targeting them.

"I can't be doing everything myself. Maybe the A-G should institute proceedings against them‎," he said.

Shafee also took a swipe at the Bar Council, claiming that the body had become a "political animal" and had lost its independence.

"They will not be respected if they remain partisan‎. They have become a political party belonging to the opposition," said Shafee, who has previously been hauled by the council for professional misconduct.

He also said that in Singapore, the then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew decided that the Bar president should be the A-G.

"I am not suggesting that the A-G should be the president here but something drastic ought to be done about the Malaysian Bar," he said.

Shafee also said that although the Bar had some 15,000 members, only 400 to 500 decided the leadership.

"More members should participate in the election so that responsible office-bearers could be elected," he added.

Contempt proceedings, he said, should also be taken against Anwar, who made disparaging remarks about the five-man bench after his conviction was affirmed.

"They could have taken contempt proceedings but did not want to be distracted.

"They didn't want the world to think we did an 'overkill' on Anwar. Sometimes the world's opinion is important‎."

Shafee said Anwar had also made remarks last year during his appeal that insinuated that the judiciary and the government were in cahoots to end his political career.

‎"I will write to the A-G to ask if we should bring him to contempt of court for his remarks outside the court."

A former deputy public prosecutor before going into private practice, Shafee is most prominent as a lawyer for cases involving Umno, the lead party in the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

Anwar had made three unsuccessful attempts to disqualify Shafee on grounds that he was not a fit and proper person to prosecute the case, citing reasons of conflict of interest and breach of ethics.

The Federal Court bench led by Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria last Tuesday dismissed Anwar’s final appeal against his conviction for sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azln and maintained the five-year jail term imposed by the Court of Appeal on March 7 last year.

The appellate court had reversed the High Court finding which acquitted Anwar.

- TMI