Shafee: I meant ‘mencubit-cubit’, not ‘pinching’

The lawyer said that when he used the phrase "mencubit-cubit", he meant an act of love, liking or seduction.

KUALA LUMPUR: Senior lawyer Shafee Abdullah claimed on Friday in the High Court that when he used the phrase “mencubit-cubit” at a forum last year, it should not be taken to mean “pinching”. Pinching, he said, could mean many things.

Shafee, while addressing a public forum on February 17 last year, had given a graphic description on foreplay and sexual acts. He alleged that de facto Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim had engaged in such acts with his former aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

During the forum, also attended by Umno Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin, Shafie said Anwar had “mencubit-cubit” Saiful’s nipples.

“Pinching could be playful, hurting and so on. ‘Mencubit-cubit’ is not cubit (pinching). We refer to ‘mencubit-cubit’ as an act of love, liking, seduction. In the video, I said ‘mencubit-cubit’, not pinching,” he said.

Shafee said this during cross examination by lawyer Ambiga Sreenevasan who had asked him if a report by online news portal Malaysiakini was accurate.

Shafee replied that not everything published in the news report was accurate. “I don’t remember if it was Malaysiakini. I thought it was Malaysian Insider. I used the word ‘mencubit-cubit’, not necessarily pinching.”

“‘Mencubit-cubit’ is within the concept of fondling, especially in the context of a man.”

Shafee filed a lawsuit last year against senior lawyer Tommy Thomas, former Court of Appeal judge V. C. George, the Bar Council, and former Bar Council president Christopher Leong in an attempt to stop them from tabling a motion during the Malaysian Bar’s Annual General Meeting.

The motion proposed that Shafee be brought before the Bar’s disciplinary board on the grounds that he had addressed forums and given interviews on Anwar’s Sodomy 2 trial.

Shafee was the lead prosecutor for the Sodomy 2 case.