Defence claims sodomy charge against Anwar a conspiracy

Anwar's co-counsel N. Surendran told the Federal Court that Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, whom Anwar had allegedly sodomised, had had meetings with several people including Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak prior to the alleged sodomy incident.

He said the meetings took place between June 24, 2008, two days before the incident, and June 28, 2008, when Mohd Saiful finally lodged a police report.

Surendran said Mohd Saiful had admitted under during cross-examination that he had met Najib, who was at that time Deputy Prime Minister, at Najib's residence and on June 24, 2008 and that on the same day, he had also met Najib's special officer Khairil Anas Yusof at his (Khairil Anas's) house.

"After that he met senior police officer Datuk Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof at Hotel Melia in Jalan Imbi on June 25. Mohd Saiful also had contacted the then Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hasan prior to lodging a report," said Surendran.

He told the court that Mohd Saiful had also met his uncle known as "Tuah" before meeting Senator Mohd Ezam Mohd Noor and the last person he met was former sprinter Datuk Mumtaz Begum Abdul Jaafar.

Surendran contended that it was probable that the alleged incident was concocted by Mohd Saiful and the persons he had met between June 24 until June 28.

"The existence of a pre-arranged plan involving Najib and others were raised extensively by Anwar in his statement from the dock but the High Court and Court of Appeal failed to give this weightage in their rulings," he said.

Surendran agreed that even through a statement from the dock carried less weightage compared with evidence under oath, the court should have given due consideration on the complaint by the appellant (Anwar).

However, Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria, who is heading the five-man bench hearing the appeal, reminded Surendran to show relevant authorities to support his argument pertaining to statement from the dock.

"You should have followed what lawyer Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram (in Anwar's defence team) did, when he submitted, he showed the case laws," he said.

Earlier, on the issue of alibi, Sri Ram had submitted that prior to the trial, Anwar had given notice of alibi to the prosecution but decided to abort the move when the High Court and Court of Appeal failed to give it much weightage when his client made the statement from the dock.

Anwar had explained why he did so in his statement from the dock, but the prosecution had used the statement against the appellant when appealing the decision of the High Court, which acquitted Anwar after the defence's case.

"The notice of alibi was not pursued but it cannot be used against the appellant. The apex court should intervene when there is clear misdirection," argued Sri Ram.

He told the Apex Court that the condominium owner, only known as Hasanuddin, was subjected to questioning for nearly 30 hours and it was video recorded.

The businessman has two units adjacent to each other at the Desa Damansara condominium, where Anwar's alibi was that he was not in the other unit during the alleged incident.

Sri Ram also pointed out that even though Anwar was present at the condominium during the alleged date and time, it did not mean that the alleged incident had took place.

In a related development, the proceedings which were set for today and tomorrow, is likely to continue until Thursday as two more lawyers from the defence team, Ramkarpal Singh and Sangeet Kaur, will submit further on the DNA analysis which has been the main issue in the case.

Meanwhile, senior lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who is heading the prosecution team, indicated that he needs at least a day to reply.