Malaysia has rejected a petition seeking a royal pardon for jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is serving a five-year prison term for sodomy, court officials and his lawyers said yesterday.
The petition was filed by Anwar’s family in February after his sentence was upheld by Malaysia’s highest court. A pardons board said Anwar’s sentence would be maintained, but gave no explanation for the decision.
“We would definitely be appealing on the leave rejection, and we will be asking for further information as to what is going on,” one of Anwar’s lawyers, Latheefa Koya, said.
Anwar, who once posed the greatest threat to Malaysia’s long-ruling coalition, was found guilty of sodomizing a former aide, a charge that he said was a politically motivated attempt to end his career.
He was head of a three-party opposition alliance that made stunning gains in the 2013 election, which for the first time raised the prospect of a genuine challenge to the coalition that has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957.
Anwar was the ruling party’s rising star in the 1990s until he fell out with then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. His family and political party have voiced concern about his health and conditions in prison since his sentence was upheld.
His last legal option is to file a judicial review with the Malaysian Federal Court. His lawyers said no decision had been made yet on such an application.
The rejection of the royal pardon came after a series of rallies organized by Anwar’s People’s Justice Party (PJP) after his imprisonment, although turnout was low at the latest rally last week.
Anwar’s daughter, PJP lawmaker Nurul Izzah, was caught up in a recent crackdown by the government and police under Malaysia’s Sedition Act. She was held in detention for one night for comments made in parliament that were deemed “contemptuous” of Malaysia’s judiciary.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
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
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion