I'll do it again, Shafee tells court about lurid roadshow

If given the chance, former special prosecutor Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said he is willing to speak in public about former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's supposed sexual advances towards his ex-aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

He told the Kuala Lumpur High Court this today amid a hearing where among the issues in dispute is whether the statements constitute Saiful's in-camera evidence and hence should not be revealed to public.

"I would do it again if invited to talk about Anwar. I would do it again," he said when cross-examined by defence counsel Ambiga Sreenevasan.

Shafee maintained his testimony since yesterday that what he revealed during a talk on Feb 17 last year was no longer in-camera evidence, and hence he was free to disclose it.

During the talk organised by Umno, Shafee had described the alleged sexual rendezvous between Anwar and Saiful in vivid detail.

This subsequently drew condemnation, which among others, included criticism for disclosing supposedly in-camera evidence to the public.

Today, Shafee testified that during Anwar's Sodomy II proceedings at the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court where he acted as the deputy public prosecutor, both sides had made references to the in-camera testimonies in presence of a full public gallery.

Despite this, he said, neither side raised issue with this, nor did the court that was aware of the supposed in-camera nature of the testimony.

However, Ambiga pointed out the Kuala Lumpur High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Federal Court had treated the in-camera evidence respectfully in their written judgments.

None of the judgments had gone into detail on the in-camera evidence, she said, except where necessary to establish the charges against Anwar.

The judgements mentioned in passing that Saiful had given in-camera evidence that described how Anwar inserted his penis into Saiful's anus with the help of a lubricant.

"The judgements were very careful, because those are the public documents that go out," Ambiga said, a contention with which Shafee disagreed.

He said while the matter of whether the testimonies at the High Court were in-camera or not did not arise and the subsequent appeals, if it did, he would have argued that the High Court order was null and void.

Admits 'sex slave' is his own words

When put to him that he had a duty to alert the Court of Appeal and Federal Court that the testimonies were given in-camera, in his capacity as an officer of the court, Shafee denied that he had such a role.

He said it was the defence counsel who asked for that portion of Saiful's testimony to be given in-camera in the first place, and Anwar had 14 lawyers who could have raised an objection.

This prompted Ambiga to query whether this meant when others made a mistake or breached the court's orders, he, Shafee, could also disclose in-camera evidence to the public.

However, Shafee disagreed, saying there was no breach of any order.

Nevertheless, Shafee admitted he had departed from the courts' findings against Anwar during his talk in Kelana Jaya.

He conceded under cross-examination it was his own words when he told the audience that Anwar treated Saiful like a "sex slave" and that Anwar behaved "arrogantly" in court by filing for a defence of alibi only to realise later that the police had CCTV videos that would undermine his defence.

Shafee's cross-examination would continue tomorrow morning.

Today's hearing was the second day of Shafee's cross-examination, for a suit that was lodged by him on March 12 last year just a day before the Malaysian Bar's AGM.

Senior lawyer Tommy Thomas, former Court of Appeal judge VC George, the Malaysian Bar, and the Bar Council president Christopher Leong were named as defendants in the suit.

The suit was to stop Thomas and George from tabling a motion in the AGM, which called for Shafee to be brought to the Bar's disciplinary board for the road-shows and interviews that he had given after securing Anwar's conviction at the Federal Court.

They said Shafee's actions of holding press conferences in criticising Anwar violated Rules 5(a), 31, 32, 33 and 49 of the Legal Profession (Practice and Etiquette) Rules 1978, and that Anwar who is serving time in prison cannot reply to the claims. -Mkini