SODOMY II , livre ebook

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130 pages

English

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On 9 January 2012, Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted of charges of sodomy against his then 23-year-old aide, Mohd Saiful. Anwar's trial lasted almost two years with many delays and appeals to the superior courts. The weeks before High Court Judge Mohd Diah Zabidin delivered his verdict were full of expectation and speculation. Most observers and lawyers - even Anwar himself - were convinced that he would be found guilty of sodomy. This book recounts the events of the trial, as reported by eminent QC Mark Trowell who observed the trial on behalf of LAWASIA, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the International Commission of Jurists, the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and Union Internationale des Advocats from January 2010 until its conclusion two years later.

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Publié par	MarshallCavendish
Date de parution	01 septembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789814398862
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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... A well written and readable account of extraordinary events that are of significance to Malaysia, its laws and politics.
The Hon. Michael Kirby ,
Retired Justice of the High Court of Australia
Mark Trowell exposes sharply the flawed prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim - an absolute read for every one interested in understanding how and why this happened.
Rogier Huizenga ,
Head Human Rights Programme,
Inter-Parliamentary Union, Geneva
The charges against Anwar Ibrahim for the offence of carnal intercourse against the order of nature, the criminal trial that followed and the strictures with respect to pre-trial disclosure, show us two things: it is high time such an offence is expunged from our statute books, and trial by ambush has no place in the criminal justice system. This book is a timely reminder that justice is a global concern.
Christopher Leong,
Vice President, Malaysian Bar
A contemporaneous and incisive account of a political trial disguised as a criminal case. A must-read.
Anil Divan,
Senior Advocate and President, Bar Association of India
An eloquently analysed process of a case, which barely corroborates the judicial independence and the Rule of Law.
Akio Harada,
Former Prosecutor General, Japan
An intriguing and internationally significant book about a monumental miscarriage of justice. Expertly told.
Thomas Percy QC,
Albert Wolff Chambers, Perth, Western Australia

Copyright 2012 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Cover and design by Bernard Go Kwang Meng
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
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National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Trowell, Mark.
Sodomy II : the trial of Anwar Ibrahim / by Mark Trowell. -
Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, c2012.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-981-4398-86-2
1. Anwar Ibrahim, 1947- - Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Trials (Sodomy) - Malaysia.
3. Judicial process - Malaysia. 4. Trials (Political crimes and offenses) - Malaysia.
I. Title. II. Title: Trial of Anwar Ibrahim
KPG174
345.595702536 -- dc23 OCN795116781

Printed in Malaysia by Pringard Trading
To the memory of my late mother,
Patricia Aileen Powell,

and to the late
Datuk Michael Bong Thiam Joon
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Timeline of events
Key players in the Sodomy II trial
P ROLOGUE : The acquittal
C HAPTER 1 Sodomy I: The first episode
C HAPTER 2 Sodomy II: Anwar charged again
C HAPTER 3 The international reaction
C HAPTER 4 Pre-trial skirmishes and start of trial
C HAPTER 5 Continuing fight for disclosure during trial
C HAPTER 6 The affair
C HAPTER 7 Was it Anwar s DNA?
C HAPTER 8 Expulsion from parliament
C HAPTER 9 Judge says case to answer
C HAPTER 10 Defence case begins; prosecution applies to reopen case
C HAPTER 11 Final submissions
C HAPTER 12 Was the judge right to acquit Anwar?
E PILOGUE : The saga continues
Acknowledgements
About the author
Foreword
THE HON. MICHAEL KIRBY, AC CMG 1
Trial observers constitute a rare, but important, breed of lawyers and other trusted citizens. In the 1990s, I had their usefulness brought to my notice in a most direct way. At the time I was the chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), based in Geneva. Following the first multi-racial elections conducted in South Africa, after the much delayed enfranchisement of all its citizens, I was invited to Pretoria to witness the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the country s first black president. On 27 April 1994, under the shadow of the impressive Union Buildings, in the very centre of Afrikanerdom, I watched the new president take his oaths of office before Chief Justice Michael Corbett of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa.
President Mandela had asked me to attend the inauguration because he had particular reason to be appreciative of the ICJ. In August 1962, whilst he was serving a sentence for leading a workers strike, he was charged, in the Rivonia Trial, of the capital crime of sabotage. Equivalent to treason, it was a charge easier for the prosecution to prove. Nelson Mandela stood at peril of his life. His lawyers task was not made easier by the fact that he insisted on admitting the specifics of the several charges involving conspiracy with the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party to use explosives to destroy water, electrical and gas utilities. In his statement from the dock, at the opening of the defence case, Mandela laid out the reasons why he had taken to violence. All of this brought him within the shadow of the gallows. It was a fact that he recognised by acknowledging that if needs be, my ideal is one for which I am prepared to die .
The ICJ had arranged for Nelson Mandela s trial to be observed throughout the proceedings by a distinguished Australian barrister, Edward St. John QC of the New South Wales Bar. The trial judge afforded him the facility of attending throughout. Mr St. John regularly reported to the Commission in Geneva and to his colleagues in Australia, waiting anxiously for news.
In the end, all but one of the accused, including Nelson Mandela, were found guilty. However, they escaped the gallows. On 12 June 1964, they were sentenced by the trial judge to life imprisonment. Nelson Mandela considered that the simple vigilance of the observers at his trial had enhanced the fairness of his proceedings. It had also contributed to the avoidance of the imposition of the death penalty.
Ted St. John, in Australia, had died by 1994. That is how the invitation to President Mandela s inauguration fell to me. As I sat there during the ceremonies, and watched the rainbow flag of a newly freed nation unfold, I reflected on the growth of the international scrutiny of contested laws in every country, including my own. And on the utility of outside observers watching sensitive national trials. Occasionally trial observance has helped those on trial. At the very least, it can serve to remind the judge of the basic principle, oft repeated in the common law, that judges, when performing their duties, are themselves on trial. This is why the principle of open justice is so important to our legal tradition. It is why, in today s world of global news, the commitment to open justice often demands the opportunity for outside scrutiny, lest local passions add to the dangers of miscarriage and to the risks of injustice.
In this highly readable account of the background, circumstances and outcome of the second trial for sodomy offences initiated against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in the High Court of Malaysia, Mark Trowell QC, of the Bar of Western Australia, has sought to continue in the high tradition performed by Ted St. John QC years earlier.
There are, of course, many differences in the circumstances that each observer faced. Malaysia was no apartheid state. Yet its Internal Security Act contains, to this day, remnants of a harsh regime addressed to political dissidents. That regime was often a feature of the late imperial laws of the British Empire, including in South Africa.
The second trial of Anwar Ibrahim, between July 2008 (when he was arrested and charged) and January 2012 (when he was acquitted by the trial judge) (Sodomy II) captured the attention of the world. It had all of the ingredients likely to entrance and sustain media attention on every continent. There had already been an earlier trial in 1998-99 (Sodomy I). In that trial, the accused had been convicted of sodomy and sentenced to nine years in prison. This conviction appeared to destroy the political career of a man who had been viewed as heir apparent to the office of Prime Minister, of Malaysia, at the time held by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
The fallout between these two successful and impressive politicians, and the exotic nature of the sexual offence of sodomy alleged, secured an international fascination for each of the trials and for the legal processes they involved which more mundane allegations of corruption, fraud or gambling offences would not have done. Here was the stuff of infotainment - the apparent fall from grace of a brilliant exponent of the political arts, in a country to whose astonishing economic advancement the accused had apparently made significant contributions. A shattered political, and almost filial, affection, mixed with charges of the abominable crime , said to be against the order of nature , delivered a news cocktai