Did Malaysia's Anwar Say too Much?

Najib and Rosmah: Was this their idea?



He says accuser acknowledged readying himself for sex



That sentence would tend to invalidate any assumption that the then-60-year-old Anwar suddenly forced himself on the 24-year-old aide. If, as Anwar says, Saiful brought the lubricant with him, it would certainly indicate that Saiful knew what he was getting into when he went to Anwar’s condo that night.



Written by John Berthelsen, Asia Sentinel



Deep into Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s hour-long attack Monday on the Malaysian court that is trying him for sodomy, a sentence appeared that seems extremely awkward for both prosecution and defense.



Anwar was brought up on the charges by his accuser, former aide Mohamad Saiful Bukhairy Azlan, in July of 2008, five months after the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition that he heads scored a historic victory in national elections, for the first time breaking the Barisan Nasional’s historic 50-year two-thirds majority in Parliament. It is the second time he has been in the dock on sodomy charges. The first was in 1998, when he was convicted in a trial that has been widely condemned as engineered to end his threat as an opposition leader. He served six years before he was pardoned on the sexual perversion charges.



Anwar said in his prepared statement that after Saiful went to Anwar’s condo in an exclusive area of Kuala Lumpur, he admitted that “he had brought along lubricant and had himself voluntarily and without hesitation applied it” to get ready to go ahead with the sexual act.



That sentence would tend to invalidate any assumption that the then-60-year-old Anwar suddenly forced himself on the 24-year-old aide. If, as Anwar says, Saiful brought the lubricant with him, it would certainly indicate that Saiful knew what he was getting into when he went to Anwar’s condo that night.



This in turn is hardly helpful for Anwar, who is on trial for his political life in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur over the allegations, because Saiful’s statement has the ring of truth to it. If you are going to make up a story about being forced into a sex act, you would hardly acknowledge that you voluntarily lubricated your own anus.



Saiful’s defense is that he was afraid of what Anwar might do to him if he didn’t submit. Anwar supposedly had the power to hire people do damage to him if he refused.



But that hardly seems realistic. Saiful has also admitted in court that in the days prior to the alleged rape, he met with then-Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor, and Rosmah’s close friend, former top athlete Mumtaz Jaafar, the executive chairperson of the National Athlete Welfare Foundation, an organization to which Rosmah is the patroness.



Saiful also acknowledged meeting with Rodwan Mohd Yusof, who was the investigating officer in Anwar’s discredited first trial for sodomy in 1998 and was accused of fabricating the evidence that put Anwar in prison for six years. He also met with Khairil Anas Jusof, an aide to Najib, and spoke on the telephone with Musa Hassan, now the head of the Malaysian police who led the investigating team in the first sodomy case.



How was a former student whom Anwar described in his statement as “just a university dropout working part time helping out my chief of staff,” able to gain access to Najib, his staff members, his wife, one of the country’s former top athletes and other officials if he didn’t have anything important to talk about?

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