Shafee probed for allegedly committing ‘qazaf’

Under Islamic law, one can only accuse another of sodomy when there are four witnesses to the act.

GEORGE TOWN: The lead prosecutor in the Anwar Ibrahim sodomy appeal case is being investigated by the Penang State Religious Department (Jaipp) for allegedly committing “qazaf” because he failed to produce four witnesses to the act of sodomy which he has accused the opposition leader of having committed.

The State Religious Affairs Committee Chairman Abdul Malik Abul Kassim meanwhile confirmed he had ordered Jaipp to open investigation papers and take appropriate action against Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

When contacted, Jaipp said they had received four reports against the prosecutor from individuals of a political party and an NGO and explained, “Shafee will be investigated under Section 41 of the Penang Sharia Criminal Offences Enactment 1996 for ‘qazaf’.”

The reports stem from Shafee’s various public dialogues about the case after Anwar was sentence to five years in prison for sodomising his former aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

At the dialogues held at the Politeknik Seberang Perai and Shah Alam, Shafee described what purported took place when Anwar was sodomising Saiful. He also described Anwar as a “closet homosexual”.

His dialogue in Shah Alam, besides causing outrage among the legal fraternity and supporters of the opposition leader, also resulted in independent Muslim preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin and Ahmad Auzaie Arshad accusing Shafee of committing “qazaf” for publicly accusing Anwar of having committed homosexual acts without providing four witnesses as demanded by the Syariah Criminal Enactment (Selangor) 1995.

Islamic affairs Minister Jamil Khir Baharom however has defended Shafee’s actions arguing that “qazaf” or bearing false witness only applied to heterosexual illicit relations and not sodomy.

Under Section 36 of the Selangor enactment, a Muslim guilty of “qazaf” can be fined not more than RM5,000, jailed no more than three years, or both.