Day: February 20, 2015

Its really so pathetic – Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah going on a UMNO-sponsored national roadshow to have a second “ bite of the cherry” in his prosecution of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Sodomy II case.

Yes, Shafee has won in the Federal Court on Feb. 10 with a shocking 5-0 unanimous decision to dismiss Anwar’s appeal and to sent him back to jail for five years, Anwar’s fourth incarceration.

Even those who were most pessimistic about Anwar’s chances and had believed before the Federal Court decision that he would lose in the Federal Court appeal had expected either a 3-2 verdict or at worst a 4-1 decision.

Everybody was floored when there was an unanimous 5-0 decision and there were not only no dissenting judgment, there was no other judgment from the five-member Federal Court quorum, apart from the single judgment by the Chief Justice, Tun Arifin Zakaria!

Although Anwar had lost in the court of the Malaysian judiciary, he had won in two other courts – the court of public opinion in Malaysia and the court of international opinion, as it will not be easy to find another Federal Court judgment in the past two decades which had met with such instant universal condemnation, not only inside the country but also outside. Continue reading “Shafee’s unprecedented and most questionable road-show an admission that although he had won in the Federal Court with 5-0 verdict in his favour on Anwar Sodomy II trial, he has lost out in the court of public opinion”

Phil Robertson, Special for CNN
February 16, 2015

(CNN)—Watching from the observers’ gallery last week, I could see Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim moving from hope, to exasperation and then finally to anger as the country’s highest court dismissed his defense team’s arguments against his sodomy conviction.

After his appeal was denied on all counts, the sentencing hearing started — and Anwar took the gloves off, declaring the incident was a “complete fabrication” and a “political conspiracy” and attacking the five Federal Court judges for becoming “partners in the crime for the murder of judicial independence and integrity.”

The judges weren’t having any of that, and abruptly stood up and walked out of the courtroom to deliberate in chambers on Anwar’s fate, leaving a stunned courtroom behind them.

Anwar now faces five years in prison to contemplate the question that is on the minds of many Malaysians, which is how could a government get away with prosecuting a former deputy prime minister and the head of the opposition not once, but twice, for violating an archaic British colonial law against sodomy that has been invoked a total of only seven times since 1938?

Has the Malaysian government so clearly lost the plot that even outside observers would recognize that the trial was blatantly political from day one? Continue reading “Opinion: Anwar imprisoned, Malaysia rights in free fall”