PUTRAJAYA: The hearing of the final appeal of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim against a sodomy conviction and five-year jail sentence entered its eighth day today at the Federal Court, with the defence expected to wrap up its submission in reply to the prosecution’s arguments.
The hearing, which was initially set for two days from Oct 28, has dragged on for eight days and is expected to conclude today.
The court is expected to set another date to deliver its decision. It is highly unlikely the court will give its verdict today as both parties had presented lengthy submissions and lot of law cases were cited in the appeal.
The appeal is being heard before a five-man bench headed by Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria. The other four judges are Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Md Raus Sharif and Federal Court judges Tan Sri Abdull Hamid Embong, Tan Sri Suriyadi Halim Omar and Datuk Ramly Ali.
Today, Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram, a former Federal Court judge who is leading a team of 15 lawyers representing Anwar, continued his submission and would wrap up the defence arguments to the points raised by the prosecution.
Yesterday Sri Ram and the late Karpal Singh’s children, Ramkarpal Singh Deo, Sangeet Kaur Deo and Gobind Singh Deo, presented their submissions.
Karpal Singh, who was Anwar’s lawyer in the case from the High Court to the Court of Appeal stage, died in a road accident along the North-South Expressway near Gua Tempurung on April 17 this year. He was 73.
In the appeal, Anwar, 67, is seeking the apex court to set aside the conviction and sentence imposed by the Court of Appeal on March 7 this year after it had overturned a High Court decision to acquit him.
The Court of Appeal had found Anwar guilty of having sodomised his former aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 27, at Unit 11-5-1 of the Desa Damansara Condominium in Jalan Setiakasih, Bukit Damansara, between 3.10 pm and 4.30 pm on
June 26, 2008.
The charge, under Section 377B of the Penal Code, carries a jail sentence of up to 20 years, and whipping, upon conviction.
The defence is seeking to free the opposition leader from the sodomy conviction while the prosecution wants the court to dismiss Anwar’s appeal to overturn his conviction and jail term.
On Jan 9, 2012, the High Court acquitted and discharged Anwar of having sodomised Mohd Saiful on the grounds that the court could not be 100 per cent certain on the integrity of samples taken for DNA testing from the alleged
victim.
The court had ruled that the samples could have been compromised before they reached the Chemistry Department for analysis.
However, the Court of Appeal, in convicting Anwar on the sodomy charge, held that the trial judge had erred in his findings about the samples which were based on the evidence of two expert witnesses called by the defence.
If Anwar loses his appeal, he could be disqualified as the MP for Permatang Pauh as per Article 48(1)(e) of the Federal Constitution which states that an MP would be disqualified if he or she is sentenced to a jail term of more than a year, or fined more than RM2,000.
This is the second sodomy case against Anwar.
In the first case, he was found guilty of having sodomised his family’s driver, Azizan Abu Bakar, at Tivoli Villa here in 1994, and was sentenced to nine years’ jail by the High Court on Aug 8, 2000.
The High Court had ordered Anwar to serve the sentence after the completion of his six-year jail term for corruption. He was found guilty on four charges of corruption on April 4, 1999.
However, after spending nearly six years in jail for corruption, Anwar was released on Sept 2, 2004 as the Federal Court, led by Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad who went on to become the chief justice, overturned his conviction and set aside the jail sentence on the charge of having sodomised Azizan, in a 2-1 majority decision.
Abdul Hamid and Judge Tengku Baharudin Shah Tengku Mahmud ruled in Anwar’s favour while Judge Datin Paduka Rahman Hussein dissented. However, Abdul Hamid, who wrote the majority judgment, said the judges found that Anwar and co-accused Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja “were involved in homosexual activities” and that the judges were inclined to believe that the alleged sodomy did take place. -Bernama