Anwar’s lawyer accuses police of double standard

 

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim and several other opposition MPs have been called up to have their statements taken over a gathering of MPs at Dataran Merdeka last Monday.

PETALING JAYA: A lawyer representing opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has accused the police of applying a double standard by taking swift action against opposition MPs and delaying action against government ministers.

Sankara N Nair questioned how the authorities seemed to have dragged their feet when it came to taking action against the likes of federal territories minister Annuar Musa and plantation industries and commodities minister Khairuddin Aman Razali when they were caught flouting SOPs earlier this year,

Even then, police had to be pressured into action, said Nair.

By contrast, he said the police had acted swiftly in calling up Anwar, who is PKR president, as well as several other opposition MPs for questioning over an attempt by MPs to hold a meeting at Parliament House.

The MPs had sought to demand that a special sitting of the Dewan Rakyat be resumed, even though it had been postponed on the advice of the health ministry following the detection of positive Covid-19 cases in the Dewan Rakyat.

Sankara N Nair.

Nair, who is representing Anwar, said ironically, it was the police who made the trip to Parliament by MPs into an illegal gathering by erecting a roadblock, inevitably causing a convergence of MPs.

He said that although the Speaker, Azhar Harun, had decided that no sitting would be held, he did not explicitly prohibit MPs from entering the Parliament compound.

Nair said the police had made a “grave mistake that sparked the entire controversy” when obstructing parliamentarians from holding a meeting.

As far as the MPs were concerned, they were entitled to head to Parliament to carry out their other duties, he said.

The police had technically broken the law when they prevented MPs from entering Parliament House, he said.

He questioned if police would also investigate a gathering of political leaders at the private home of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on the day Umno decided to retract its support of the Perikatan Nasional government.

The gathering was in breach of rules to control infectious diseases. “And police can probe those who stopped by Muhyiddin’s house even without a police report being lodged,” he said. - FMT