Anwar Ibrahim to face Malaysian High Court
Updated
Malaysia's opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has lost a final bid to have his sodomy trial held in a lower court, ending a long battle over where the case should be heard.
The Court of Appeal rejected Anwar's application, supporting an earlier decision that the case should be heard in the High Court. The trial is due to start on 8 July.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Sankara Nair, Anwar Ibrahim's lawyer
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NAIR: It is a mockery in the sense in the manner in which they devlivered the decision and the reason for the decision saying that there will be no element of bias or fear from the authorities, especially the prosecuting authorities. And we have consistently complained from 1998 to now that this was a conspiracy and he was part of it.
LAM: But why is your client so reluctant to have the case heard in the High Court?
NAIR: It's not really a problem for us except at the sessions court when it first started there was an application for transfer and it was signed by the Attorney General himself who is the target of unmarked complaints and police reports over the years.
LAM: This is Datuk Abdul Gani Patail?
NAIR: That is correct.
LAM: Your client I understand was given assurance last year by the then prime minister Abdullah Badawi that Abdul Gani Patail, the Public Prosecutor will not be involved in any way with the trial. Is that going to be the case now?
NAIR: Absolutely not, because he's already shown his hand in the signing of the certificate. So there goes this so-called assurance. And now they're saying in court the Prime Minister is a lay person, he cannot assume the powers of the Attorney General and make such a statement.
LAM: Well some of Anwar's supporters fear that the High Court might be more easily manipulated, what evidence is there?
NAIR: Well at this stage I suppose it's all speculation, but the fact that even in the High Court they've rejected the core reasons given by a lower court judge as to why she allowed our application that leads to this sort of speculation.
LAM: What was the reason given by the lower court judge at that time?
NAIR: She said that the assurance of the Prime Minister as well as the fact that the element of bias and all that had been raised by her, especially legitimate expectations of the litigants when he was promised by the Prime Minister, all that has been negated by the Gani Patail signing of the transfer certificate, and I think that was rather clear and told him that there was a basis for such an application was well allowed and all of a sudden it was overturned by the High Court for ridiculous reasons.
LAM: So Sankara Nair, with things the way they stand the trial starts next Wednesday, do you expect it to be a long drawn process?
NAIR: Again this is rather worrying and disturbing. We have another application to strike out the entire proceedings because we have some evidence which is of course some evidence passed by the prosecution to us, and upon examination we feel there's no case to answer, so we decided to go and file a striking out application. That's going to be heard on the 8th [July]. And the shocking bit was the judge also hear bits of the hearing made on the same day and not mentioned it like let's hear this person and deal with the trial later. He seems to be so insistent on fixing hearing date all the way.
