Reuters
Published: March 5, 2009
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial has been transferred to the High Court in a move that his lawyers have said in the past could prejudice the 62-year-old's chances of a fair hearing.
Anwar was only released from prison in 2004 after being sentenced in the late 1990s on what he said were trumped up sodomy and corruption charges and returned to parliament last August when he won a by-election in a seat held by his wife.
Thursday's ruling by a judge at a Kuala Lumpur High court will be appealed against by Anwar, one of his lawyers said.
"We are disappointed and my client is disappointed," Sankara Nair, one of Anwar's lawyers told journalists after the hearing.
The case will be formally heard by the junior Sessions Court next Tuesday and the judge in that court, who had opposed the move to the higher court, will now have to formally transfer the case.
If imprisoned for sodomy Anwar could face 20 years in prison as all homosexual acts in Malaysia, a mainly Muslim country of 27 million people, are against the law.
That would effectively end his political career which has seen him come close to mounting a challenge to the National Front government that has ruled Malaysia for the 51 years since independence from Britain.
The People's Alliance grouping that Anwar now heads deprived the government of its two-thirds parliamentary elections in March 2008 and ended up controlling five of Malaysia's 13 state legislatures, the best ever result for the opposition here.
Their strong performance forced Prime Minister Abudllah Ahmad Badawi to step aside early and he will leave office at the end of March to be replaced by Najib Razak who is currently deputy prime minister and finance minister.
Najib, the son of Malaysia's third prime minister, faces a huge challenge to avert a recession in Malaysia whose exports have been badly hit by the global slowdown.
He will present a mini-budget of new spending measures on March 10.
(Reporting by Razak Ahmad; Writing by David Chance; Editing by David Fox