3 September 2004
Political favourite freed after six years
Eric Ellis
ANWAR IBRAHIM, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, was released from prison yesterday after his conviction for sodomy was unexpectedly overturned.
Looking frail but smiling broadly, he was taken by wheelchair from Malaysia's Federal Court outside the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Anwar, 57, had always maintained that the charges against him had been trumped up by Mahathir Mohamad, who stepped down as Prime Minister last November after 22 years in office.
"Thank God, after six years, I am now free," Anwar, once Malaysia's most popular politician, said outside the court.
His jubilant supporters chanted and demanded Dr Mahathir's arrest as they crowded around Anwar and his wife, Wan Azizah Ismail, who had led a tireless campaign to free her husband since his fall from power in September 1998.
Anwar's release is a political boost for the present Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, 64, a colourless politician who became Dr Mahathir's favourite after Anwar's fall from grace, eventually taking over on Dr Mahathir's retirement ten months ago.
Mr Badawi has endeavoured to separate his reign from Dr Mahathir's excesses, pursuing many of the retired leader's associates for corruption."I have to give credit to the new Prime Minister for not interfering with the judiciary," Anwar said. "I must point out that his predecessor would not have done the change and reform. There is at last some independence in the judiciary, but it is only the beginning."
The opposition National Justice Party, set up by Anwar's wife after his arrest, said he would be flown to Germany for urgent medical treatment, in a jet provided by the Saudi Arabian Government. The NJP, better known by its Malay name, Keadilan, had as its symbol an eye, an acknowledgement of the frequent beatings, admitted by police, which Anwar suffered in detention.
Anwar's release and conciliatory remarks have raised speculation that he may eventually be taken back into the fold by the ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation.
He had been groomed by Dr Mahathir to take over as Prime Minister, serving in various senior cabinet positions, but when the 1997-98 financial crisis crippled the Malaysian economy, Anwar and Dr Mahathir fell out over how to handle the situation. Anwar was detained under the country's Internal Security Act and tried on charges of corruption and sodomy, the latter for an alleged sexual act with his driver in 1994.
His corruption sentence expired last year, a conviction which, unless also overturned,will constitutionally exclude him from formal political office until 2008.
16 September 2004
Court bars dissident
Eric Ellis in Singapore
Malaysia's leading political dissident, Anwar Ibrahim, was dealt a blow by the country's highest court yesterday with a ruling that effectively bars him from public life.
The Federal Court, which freed him a fortnight ago from a six-year sentence in a Kuala Lumpur jail, threw out his attempt to erase a corruption conviction that would have allowed him formally to return to the political stage.
Anwar, 57, is now constitutionally barred from political party office and from parliament until April 2008, when his 2003 conviction expires.
The former Deputy Prime Minister and one-time heir-apparent to the retired strongman, Mahathir Mohamad, can seek a royal pardon but that seems unlikely as, like Britain, Malaysia's monarchy rarely rules against government direction.
Anwar has long maintained that his convictions for sodomy and corruption were trumped up by Dr Mahathir. After the sodomy charge was dismissed and he was released on September 2, he flew to Munich for emergency surgery for injuries he sustained from beatings in jail.
Anwar said that the ruling made no difference and that he would continue with his "reformasi" agenda to democratise Malaysia and root out corruption in government, the law and business.