Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim alleged a “political conspiracy” as he was sent to jail yesterday after his appeal against a sodomy conviction was rejected, likely spelling the end of his career.
Malaysian Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria dismissed Anwar’s challenge against last year’s conviction on charges of sodomizing a young male former aide, saying the court found “overwhelming evidence” of the crime.
Sodomy is punishable by up to 20 years in prison in Muslim-majority Malaysia. Anwar was taken from the court in the afternoon to begin his sentence.
Photo: EPA
Arifin read his judgement out to a stunned courtroom packed with opposition figures, journalists and Anwar’s family and supporters, many of whom wept quietly.
Anwar later took to the dock to launch a scathing attack on the Malaysian Federal Court panel of justices, accusing them of collusion in a “political conspiracy” by Malaysia’s now 58-year-old ruling regime.
“In bowing to the dictates of your political masters, you have become partners to the crime,” he said. “You have chosen to be on the dark side.”
“I will not be silenced. I will never surrender,” Anwar shouted at the judges as they abruptly got up to leave.
Government critics say the case is part of a long-running campaign to destroy Anwar, a former deputy premier who was ousted from the ruling party in the late 1990s and later helped unite a previously divided and hapless opposition into a formidable force.
“It’s a day of infamy. It’s a shocking decision,” senior opposition parliamentarian Lim Kit Siang said.
The ruling is a heavy blow to both Anwar and the opposition.
Now 67, Anwar might not emerge from prison until the age of 72 if he serves the full term. He is also stripped of his parliament seat and disqualified from running in the next elections, due by 2018.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has previously admitted meeting Anwar’s accuser, Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, in 2008 just before the charges were filed, but he denies orchestrating the case and a statement by his office after the ruling insisted the judiciary was independent.
However, Human Rights Watch condemned the case as part of a rapidly deteriorating rights situation that has seen the government launch a crackdown on free speech, calling it a “travesty of justice.”
Amnesty International called it “an oppressive ruling that will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.”
Hundreds of Anwar supporters became locked in a tense standoff with riot police near the court after the ruling.
Analysts say jailing Anwar also bears risks for Najib’s regime, which lost the popular vote in 2013 elections, clinging to power only through gerrymandering.
“Few inside [UMNO’s] system fully appreciate that jail time will make Anwar a martyr for a new generation, rally his supporters at home and abroad and signal the weakness of [Najib’s] government in its need to remove an opponent,” National Taiwan University Southeast Asia political analyst Bridget Welsh wrote in a recent essay.
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