by Ramli Zain
The Malaysian Insider
Aug 22, 2011
AUG 22 — By making an unsworn statement from the dock today in his sodomy trial, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has now put the whole country, its judiciary, the media and our entire justice system on trial.
More than that, he has given notice to politicians like Datuk Seri Najib Razak and other players in his prosecution that he intends to place them on trial as well.
Whether one agrees with this move or not, the message is clear.
Sodomy II is no longer about whether he is guilty of sodomising his aide — if it ever was in the first place — but will now be an attack against the political and justice system which he claims has conspired to put him in this position.
Make no mistake; what Anwar did today was make a political statement from the dock.
Anwar played by the rules in Sodomy I more than a decade ago and it got him a few years in jail.
His attempts then to introduce evidence of political conspiracy were met with the constant refrain of “irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant.”
So any attempt now to examine from a legal perspective his unusual decision to make a statement from the dock is in fact irrelevant.
Anwar explained today that he was opting to testify from the dock, where the prosecution has no recourse under law to cross-examine his statement, because he had no confidence he would be tried fairly, and declared the entire court process “is nothing but a conspiracy by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to send me into political oblivion by attempting once again to put me behind bars”.
In his own words:”As I have said at the outset, this is not a criminal trial. It is a charade staged by the powers that be to put me out of action in order that they remain in power.
“Najib Razak is doing the same thing as his mentor did, which is to employ all means within his power through the media, the police, the Attorney-General and the judiciary in order to subvert the course of justice and to take me out of the political equation.
So what Anwar is telling Malaysians is that he thinks that whatever the evidence he puts before the court he is still going to jail.
So he chose to have his say in court today.