The Hindu : Anwar appeal turned down

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 19, 2003

International

International

Anwar appeal turned down

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE April 18. The conviction and punishment of Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, in the case relating to alleged sodomy were today confirmed by the Court of Appeal in Kuala Lumpur.

His lawyers sought yet another appeal against the verdict, this time at the Federal Court, the highest judicial forum. On the political plane, however, it looked as though Mr. Anwar was now beginning to stare at the closure of one of the last avenues open to him for any return to the centre-stage any time soon. The judicial verdict was pronounced by a three-member bench, even as Mr. Anwar completed his jail sentence in the other case relating to a corrupt practice that was aimed at a cover-up of certain allegations of sexual misconduct by him in his capacity as Deputy Prime Minister. For his good behaviour in prison, he earned a one-third remission of his six-year sentence in the corruption case, and he completed the relevant term of his punishment by April 14 this year.

Mr. Anwar, aged 56, will begin a nine-year jail sentence in the sodomy case, with effect from April 14 this year, if the Federal Court were to take his fresh appeal into account and uphold the latest judgment. Should he win one more remission for good conduct, he might find himself at liberty by April 14, 2009, it is reckoned in Malaysia's legal circles.

However, in a strict legal sense, the final judicial word on Mr. Anwar's fate in the sodomy case has not yet been pronounced. The conviction and sentencing of Mr. Anwar's alleged collaborator in the sodomy case were also upheld by the Court of Appeal in Kuala Lumpur. The bench consisted of Justices Pajan Singh Gill, Richard Malanjum and Hashim Yusoff.

The legal saga of Mr. Anwar's cases began in 1998 in the context of his dismissal as Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister. The exact circumstances of his dismissal from office as also the framing of the charges against him were often lost in the mist of political controversies over his downfall from the pedestal of a heir-apparent to Malaysia's long-serving Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad.

However, Mr. Anwar's profile as a presumptive ``prisoner of political dissent'' - distinct from that of a "prisoner of political conscience'' - has vastly diminished since 1998, given the disinclination of the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, to sustain the campaign that they had begun on his behalf on the wider international stage.

Today, even as Dr. Mahathir remains critical of the U.S. over its latest war in Iraq, his political equation with Washington has improved dramatically since 1998, especially so after the West veered round to accepting him as an anti-terror campaigner in the wake of the September 11 events in 2001.

This aspect has something to do with the current perceptions in the West about the Anwar cases, at least behind the scenes.

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