Malaysia’s High Court said yesterday that it would let prosecutors use key DNA evidence against former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in his sodomy trial, handing another setback to the opposition leader as he confronts a new controversy involving a sex video.
The decision was a surprising reversal of the court’s own recent ruling that a toothbrush, towel and water bottle that Anwar kept during police detention could not be submitted as evidence in his trial.
A chemist testified that DNA on those items matched that of semen discovered on Anwar’s accuser.
Photo: AFP
The evidence is a vital part of the prosecution’s effort to prove that Anwar had sex with his 25-year-old former aide. Anwar faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of sodomy, a crime in this Muslim-majority country.
The court’s ruling comes while Anwar is struggling with new allegations of sexual misconduct after a sex video depicting a man believed to resemble him was leaked under mysterious -circumstances on Monday. Anwar claims both the sodomy charge and the video were fabricated by the government to crush his political threat.
Authorities have denied any conspiracy.
The Malaysian High Court had decided earlier this month that the DNA evidence was not obtained legally during Anwar’s brief detention in 2008. It reversed its ruling yesterday after hearing new testimony from police who argued otherwise.
Anwar criticized the decision, insisting to reporters that authorities got the three items through “trickery and deception.”
He has refused to voluntarily provide a DNA sample because he fears authorities will tamper with it.
Without DNA evidence, the prosecution’s case hinges mainly on testimony by Anwar’s ex-aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, who claims Anwar coerced him into having sex at a Kuala Lumpur condominium in June 2008.
Prosecutors said that they planned to wrap up their case today by recalling two witnesses for testimony.
Anwar, a married 63-year-old with six children, has also been battling to convince the public that he is not the man seen having sex with an unknown woman in a video that people who refused to identify themselves showed to several Malaysian journalists on Monday.
Police say they are investigating the video, which has not been publicly circulated.
Johari Abdul, a Malaysian Member of Parliament in Anwar’s opposition alliance, said yesterday he watched the video in a hotel room this week on the -invitation of two men, one of whom is a former government politician. He claimed the man filmed in the black-and-white video looked more plump than Anwar and had broader shoulders.
Debate over the video could hurt Anwar’s three-party alliance in a state election that officials announced yesterday would be held on April 16.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition hopes to easily retain control of the Sarawak state legislature on Borneo Island to boost its confidence ahead of national elections widely expected within a year.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the