Lawyers for Liberty is outraged though not at all surprised by High Court judge Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah in ruling that the prosecutors led by Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden have proven a prima facie case against Anwar Ibrahim and called for him to enter his defence.

Let there be no doubt: the Anwar Ibrahim trial is a sham and has absolutely no credibility whatsoever.

How can the judge come to the conclusion that the complainant Saiful Bukhari was a credible and truthful witness when he has given serious contradictory and highly suspect evidence and even had an affair with one of the prosecutors in the case? He even testified in court that he met up with senior police officers and high-level UMNO politicians, including the Prime Minister and his wife, before he made his police report against Anwar. Is that not sufficient to cast areasonable doubt on the case?

The medical report actually showed that there was “No conclusive clinical findings suggestive of penetration to the anus/rectum and no significant defensive wound on the body of the patient” – Kuala Lumpur General Hospital report, 28 June, 2008. But only in Malaysia, that such a medical report was held not to cast a reasonable doubt and the doctors then testified contrary to the medical report findings in order to implicate Anwar.

From the inception of the case, Anwar’s lawyers have been fighting a losing battle – constantly obstructed and denied by the prosecutors and judiciary from assessing important and pertinent documents to the case including medical notes and other documents relating to the chemist and DNA reports. How can this be called an independent and fair trial?

The Malaysian criminal justice system has once again been used as a convenient “legal” tool of persecution against political opponents and dissidents. The present case is but the most extreme and obvious example of the dishonest and unlawful cooperation between supposedly independent state apparatus: the judiciary, the police, the Attorney General’s Chambers and other state agencies like the chemist department and hospitals in manufacturing and perverting evidence in order to get Anwar at all cost.

We should not be deceived for a moment that Anwar has received a fair and independent trial as the UMNO-BN supporters will undoubted claim. If this case did not involve Anwar or he was tried in any country with a decent criminal justice system, the case would have been rejected a long time ago – and those who attempted such blatant and puerile criminal conspiracy would have been brought to book.

It goes without saying that this sham trial and other underhanded attack against Anwar including the preposterous pornography clip campaign are designed to incapacitate Anwar from the impending general election. Anwar’s case has once again re-confirmed Malaysia as a basket case – a country where the ruling UMNO-BN will do absolutely anything to destroy its Number One political opponent Anwar Ibrahim and the coalition he leads Pakatan Rakyat, even at the cost of destroying the country and its administrative and criminal justice system.

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Lawyers for Liberty