So it is now up to Najib and Shafee to prove their innocence and if they cannot or refuse then that means this is proof that Anwar did not receive a fair trial. And this is the message the Pakatan Harapan people must bring back to their kampungs when they balek kampung this weekend and they must talk about this while they eat rendang and ketupatduring Hari Raya.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
(Free Malaysia Today) – The High Court today ordered the government to respond to a suit by former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to quash his sodomy conviction on grounds that he was denied a fair trial, following a claim that a senior prosecutor had received millions of ringgit from the prime minister.
Lawyer Latheefa Koya said the High Court also ordered counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah to file his case in response to Anwar’s application to compel the Umno-linked lawyer to disclose his bank account transactions between August 2013 and March 2014.
Anwar has filed two suits: One over not receiving a fair trial, and the second to compel Prime Minister Najib Razak and Shafee to reveal bank account details. (READ MORE HERE)
Finally Anwar Ibrahim’s lawyers seem to be getting it right. Instead of saying that Anwar did not sodomise Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan and that Saiful lied and that the police illegally took Anwar’s seminal fluid and inserted it into Saiful’s anus and so on, they are now applying the strategy that Anwar did not get a fair trial.
This was the same strategy we applied in early 2000 when we launched the Free Anwar Campaign (FAC). Rather than argue that Anwar did not commit sodomy or did not bugger his wife’s driver, Azizan Abu Bakar, we argued that Anwar was denied a fair trial.
We then spent years campaigning in the US, EU, UK, Australia, and so on, telling the world leaders that Anwar is a victim of a rigged trial. We explained that Anwar was denied his fundamental right of a fair trial and hence he should not have been found guilt and sentenced to a jail term of nine years (on top of the six years sentence he was then still serving for the conviction of abuse of power).
Furthermore, the sentences were running consecutively and not concurrently. So Anwar will need to spend a total of 15 years in jail on top of the seven months he spent in jail under remand (from September 1998 till April 1999) because they denied him bail when he should have been granted bail.
What we did not explain, of course, is that the charges involved two separate cases and not two charges of the same case. So the two sentences would have to be consecutive and not concurrent. But then people do not bother about technical details. They are too busy and have no time for that. They just want to know the bottomline and the bottomline is Anwar was jailed 15 years and seven months when it should have only been six years (after remission) and on top of that he was denied a fair trial.
So the impression we created is that not only did Anwar not receive a fair trial, he was also jailed almost ten years more than he should have. So there are TWO injustices against Anwar. And this really upset those foreign leaders we spoke to, which is how Anwar earned the title of ‘Prisoner of Conscience’.
And what proof do we have that Anwar was denied a fair trail? Well, the proof is that Azizan, the so-called victim, lied and even the judge said so. The judge said the witness is so unreliable and says one thing today and another thing tomorrow. Then, during sentencing, the judge said even though the witness lied that does not mean his entire evidence needs to be rejected.
READ MORE HERE
