When the sodomy trial of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim resumes on Monday, the defense is expected to zoom in on why DPP Farah Azlina had chosen to hide from her bosses her alleged affair with the complainant Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and if this meant that she was trying to cover up for having given Saiful special information and tips on how to nail Anwar.
Anwar's lawyers have said they will ask the judge to recall Saiful to the witness stand to answer if there was such an affair and if his closeness to Farah had enabled him to access confidential information such as the Investigation Papers.
They will also seek the same of Farah. Of great concern to them is the fact that Farah did not tell her supervisors that she had begun a relationship with Saiful. The Attorney-General had to scramble to verify the allegations made by Malaysia's top blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, when he broke the news last month. Although the AG has dropped Farah from the prosecution team, he has steered clear of a denial.
“There is no reason for the court to deny our request to bring Saiful and Farah to the stand. It is in fact quite imperative that it does so. This is not a personal fling between Saiful and Farah. At stake are Anwar’s good name and a jail sentence if he is found guilty,” one Anwar’s lawyers Sivarasa Rasiah told Malaysia Chronicle.
"We have been doing our checks and we are very perturbed by the fact that she could knowingly sacrifice her professional ethics for Saiful. It reeks of the possibility that she may have without their knowledge given Saiful special information and tips on how to corner Anwar in the trial."
No favors
Saiful had accused Anwar of sodomizing him at Unit 11-5-1 in Desa Damansara Condominium, Jalan Setiakasih, Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, between 3.01pm and 4.30pm on June 26, 2008. The former deputy prime minister has denied the charges and accused Prime Minister Najib Razak of collaborating with Saiful to frame him and derail his political comeback.
So far, the trial has been described as “tilted” by New-York-based Human Rights Watch and many others because of the manifestly fabricated nature of the charges. The fact that the prosecution has stubbornly refused to give Anwar access to key information needed to prepare his defense has further fanned speculation that Najib wants Anwar behind bars at all costs.
On Friday, the Court of Appeal dealt Anwar a fresh blow by upholding a lower court ruling that denied him access to the documents, which include medical notes, specimens and test results of the doctors who had examined Saiful.
His defense team is not expecting any favours from High Court Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah when the strike-out application is heard tomorrow.
“We can only hope for the best but the track record of the court decisions against Anwar are there for all to see,” Sivarasa.
“At the very least we hope to get Saiful and Farah to answer to the charges as their responses will give a strong indication of their moral worthiness, especially Saiful’s credibility as witness. The court may not be able to decide immediately on the application but it might set another date for the two to appear. No doubt,, it can also throw out the application but that would confirm the complaints that Najib is playing foul."
International rebuke
Among world leaders who have criticized the trial and even urged U.S. Presidnt Barack Obama to censure the Najib administration for overtly undermining democracy and justice are former U.S. vice president and Nobel laureate Al Gore and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.
"Mr Anwar has been charged under very dubious circumstances with sodomy, a criminal offense under Malaysian law. If convicted, he faces a possible 20-year sentence—effectively life in prison for a man of 63," Gore and Wolfowitz said in a joint statement last this week.
"His trial, scheduled to resume next week, threatens not just Mr Anwar but all those in Malaysia who have struggled for a freer and more democratic nation. It is also important for the rest of the world, because it casts a troubling shadow over the future of a nation that should be a model for other Muslim countries?"
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