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PAS : KE ARAH PEMERINTAHAN ISLAM YANG ADIL
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Subject:
[ADIL-Net] Mahathir vs. Anwar: Who is guilty?
Date:
Sun, 30 Jul 2000 05:14:23 -0700 (PDT)
From:
Kumaraguru Vengkadata <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Kim Quek
21.07.2000
Anwar has justmade another legal history – he took
over from his lawyers to do the summing up himself in
the final submissions in his sodomy trial that was
just concluded.
In a manner befitting the grand finale to these
historical trials, Anwar launched his salvo right at
the root cause of this tragic episode. He accused
Mahathir as the “supreme maestro” who conducted the
orchestration of fabricated evidence and false
charges. He identified Mahathir as the man behind his
cruel persecution in the hands of the police and the
prosecutors, in particular, his near fatal beating by
the former Inspector General of Police.
And so, in one sweeping stroke, Anwar has transferred
the focus of his long running sex trials back to where
it should be. The real issue is not whether Anwar is
guilty of corruption or sodomy. It is: MAHATHIR vs
ANWAR: Who is right? Who is guilty?
To put us in proper perspective, we have to go back to
that fateful day in September 1998 when Mahathir
dropped the bombshell. He sacked Anwar as the Deputy
Prime Minister and expelled him from UMNO two days
later, after pronouncing that Anwar was guilty of the
heinous sexual crime of
sodomy.
To pleas that Anwar’s punishment should be delayed
until he was proven guilty, Mahathir’s answer was that
he already had irrefutable proof of Anwar’s guilt.
Mahathir further pleaded to the Nation to be patient,
promising that Anwar would be brought to open trial,
during which evidences of Anwar’s sexual crimes would
be fully exposed to appease the Nation.
In a press conference televised to the whole world two
days after Anwar’s arrest, Mahathir declared that he
had “incontrovertible” proof of Anwar’s sodomy, and
that he sacked Anwar not because of differences in
politics or economics, but because Anwar, being a
sodomite, was unfit
to be the Prime Minister of a Muslim country.
(Mahathir repeated the same pronouncement in the major
capitals of the world during his frequent
globetrotting).
Anwar was duly charged in November 1998 for corrupt
practices for “ordering” the police to procure letters
from poison pen writers to deny sexual crimes
“committed” by Anwar for the purpose of escaping
“criminal proceedings”.
For the Prosecution to succeed in this trial, it must
prove a) Anwar had committed the sexual crimes and b)
he ordered a cover up of these crimes.
Half way through this “corruption” trial, it was
apparent to all that the case of Anwar’s sexual crime
built up by the Prosecution had all but collapsed.
The Prosecution promptly dropped the sexual charges
and confined itself to charging Anwar for having
interfered with police investigation. And the Judge,
on his own volition and without prompting from any
party, expunged Prosecution’s entire evidence on
Anwar’s “sexual crimes”, so that the Prosecution would
be relieved of the
responsibility to prove such crimes.
And so, Mahathir’s promised courtroom extravaganza of
Anwar’s sexual crimes ended in a whimper.
Not to be deterred by such fiasco, the Attorney
General mounted another attempt to prove Anwar’s
sexual crime, this time charging Anwar for having
sodomised one Azizan Abu Bakar one night in 1994.
Before and during this “sodomy” trial, the date of
offence was shifted from 1994 to 1992, and again from
1992 to one night between January and March 1993, the
Prosecution apparently having found the previous dates
factually unsustainable. Azizan subsequently
testified that he never volunteered any date of
offence to the police, meaning the police had made up
these various dates.
Prosecution case was based solely on Azizan’s
testimony with no corroborating witnesses and material
evidence. Azizan was rebuked by the Judge on many
occasions for giving conflicting answers, wavering and
hesitating in answering the defending attorney.
Defence case was based mainly on alibi and on an
alleged high-level conspiracy to topple Anwar.
Defence’s alibi was largely unchallenged. As for
conspiracy, Defence has produced witnesses to
substantiate the motive, identify the individuals and
describe the activities relating to this alleged
conspiracy. Some of these touched directly on Prime
Minister Mahathir. These evidences were also largely
unchallenged.
An important development in this trial is Mahathir’s
resistance against a subpoena for him to appear as a
witness, contrary to his previously professed
willingness to appear in court. Defence claimed
Mahathir could provide vital information, as the
latter had declared Anwar innocent of the sexual
allegations in these poison pen letters in August
1997, after receiving a Special Branch Report, which
confirmed Anwar as a victim of political controversy.
Additionally, Azizan also had
testified earlier that he had met Mahathir in
connection with the poison pen letters.
Mahathir’s objection to the subpoena was that he did
not want to be politically exploited by Anwar by the
former’s appearance in court.
Most unfortunate for Mahathir, this explanation of his
only reveals his hollowness vis-à-vis the
Mahathir-Anwar tussle for the moral high ground in
this Country. How is it possible for Anwar to gain
any political advantage by a Mahathir court
appearance, when the latter is supposedly
armed with “incontrovertible” evidence of Anwar’s
sodomy? Shouldn’t Anwar be the one who would suffer
disadvantage by a Mahathir appearance? Wouldn’t
Mahathir’s “incontrovertible” evidence in court have
dealt Anwar a fatal blow? In fact, Prosecution should
have called Mahathir in the first place to appear as a
star witness to prop up Azizan’s shaky evidence. Now
that Prosecution has neglected to do so, and Defence
has gallantly offered Mahathir the chance, he should
have jumped at this last opportunity to appear in
court to defend his honour (against
Defence’s sinister insinuations) and fulfill his
promise to the Nation earlier that Anwar’s sexual
crimes would be fully exposed in court in due course
In stead, we see a Mahathir wriggling his way away
from the courtroom, filing affidavit after affidavit
(against the subpoena), and fighting all the way from
the High Court to the Appeal Court to the Federal
Court (Supreme Court), just to avoid a court
appearance.
Is that the picture of a leader walking in the path of
truth, confident in his righteousness in condemning
and punishing his deputy? Or is it more like a
reflection of guilt, fearful that the truth would come
out?
In Retrospect
Now that the two-year-old Anwar court saga is
virtually coming to a close, it is useful to make a
few reflections.
Does any one wonder how a stranger (equipped with a
legal mind) to this Country would react when he is
presented with the Anwar court cases for the first
time?
I bet he would consider these as the most bizarre
cases he has ever encountered. He must be thinking
that Malaysia must have just emerged from the medieval
ages, unfamiliar with the rule of law of recent times.
Or alternatively, Malaysians are sheep like creatures,
meek and obedient, ever ready to accept whatever
dictates from the herdsman. Or else, how could he
explain the strange legal phenomena exhibited by these
cases?
In a nutshell, two disreputable individuals wrote two
unsubstantiated poison letters to the prime minister,
accusing the deputy prime minister of sexual
misconduct and sodomy. The deputy prime minister
(dpm) asked the police to obtain retraction letters
from these two individuals. As
a result, the dpm was charged for corrupt practices
for directing the police to procure the retraction
letters. During the trial, the dpm protested that he
never committed the alleged sexual misconduct. But the
judge ruled that issue as irrelevant, adding that he
was not interested to know whether the dpm did or did
not commit the alleged sexual misconduct. The judge
also barred crucial defence witnesses from giving
evidence. At the end, in spite of dubious and
contradictory evidences
by the prosecution witnesses, the judge pronounced his
satisfaction that the dpm did direct the police to
procure the retraction letters and sentenced the dpm
to 6 years jail.
In the second case, the dpm was charged for sodomising
one of the two disreputable individuals mentioned
above. Prosecution case depended completely on the
words of this disreputable individual. There was no
corroborating witnesses or material evidence
whatsoever.
In spite of the utmost simplicity of the above 2 cases
from the legal point of view, these cases have made
waves and broken all records of our legal history, in
terms of duration of trial, numbers of prosecutors and
defending lawyers, national and international
publicity, commotion and
emotions and finally political impact. In any
democratic country, the above 2 cases would not even
make it to the doorsteps of the courts, not to mention
making legal history. But in Malaysia, they
practically turned the Country upside down. What kind
of a country are we living in? A mad, mad, mad,
…….world? Or a sick, sick, sick,…….world?
That such transgression of justice and decency as
represented by the Anwar trials should go unchallenged
by the silent majority is a shameful indictment on the
integrity of this Country. As for the large section
of our population who still rejoice in Mahathir’s
chorus of “Malaysia Boleh”, oblivious of the naked
decadence of our democratic system, one wonders
whether they will ever be awakened to the fact that we
have already sunk to depths unknown in our 44 years of
independence.
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