Following Anwar Ibrahim's swearing-in as prime minister last month, an essay which claimed to be the last words of the judge who convicted him of sodomy and corruption in 1999 has been circulating on social media.
However, the essay which reads like a deathbed reflection of the late judge Augustine Paul is likely to be fiction.
This is because the first record of it being published online was in December 1998, more than a decade before the judge died in 2010 and four months before he delivered the verdict in April 1999.
The essay titled 'I Watch The Sparrows Fly' was first shared through the Google Group 'soc.culture.malaysia' as a form of fictional envisioning of what the judge's future might be.
It was then reproduced by jufree.tripod.com, a website dedicated to the reformasi movement, which was last updated on Nov 22, 1999.
Jufree.tripod.com also attributed the essay to the Google Group.
Factual errors
The latest version, now circulating on WhatsApp, has one small difference from the 1998 version.
In the latest version, the preface states that the essay was written in 2010, while the original version states that the year was 2018.
This is likely because the writer who penned this fictional account in 1998 had overestimated the judge's lifespan by eight years.
The essay also included some factual errors.
For example, it stated the judge resigned to avoid being removed from the Federal Court bench.
In fact, he died of cancer while still on the bench, several months before he was due to retire.
The essay also claimed the judge's wife and children died before him, but actually, he was survived by his wife Dr Mary Paul and children Dr Juliana Sharmini and Alan John.
The essay was also debunked as "fake news" on Malaysian content aggregation website and online forum Techarp on Nov 26.
Malaysiakini reviewed the essay after a member of the public submitted it through the fact-checking alliance JomCheck's tipline.
Through JomCheck, Malaysians are able to submit requests to fact-check a claim by sending a WhatsApp message to the tipline at 017-477 6659 (WhatsApp text only, no calls) or via this link. - Mkini
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