[ Laman Ehwal Semasa ReformIS ]
Date: 18 Aug 1999
Time: 04:44:13
Remote User: -
Malaysia's Anwar says police officer is lying
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 18 (AFP) - Malaysia's ousted deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday urged the court trying him for alleged sodomy to cite a senior police officer for contempt.
"I am applying for the witness (Senior Assistant Commissioner Musa Hassan) to be charged with contempt of court immediately," said Anwar's counsel Karpal Singh.
"He (Musa) is lying in the face of the court. This man should be locked up," Karpal said after Musa contradicted earlier testimony about why Anwar's alleged rape victim did not undergo a medical examination.
Karpal urged Justice Arifin Jaka to postpone the trial for several hours while he found case studies to support his motion.
Anwar, fired and arrested in September last year, is serving a six-year sentence handed down in April for corruption involving attempts to cover up allegations of sexual misconduct.
Anwar and his adopted brother Sukma Darmawan are accused of sodomising Anwar's former driver Azizan Abu Bakar between January and March 1993. Sukma faces a further charge of abetting Anwar to sodomise Azizan.
If convicted of sodomy, Anwar could face an additional 20 years in jail.
Musa had earlier told the court that in June 1999 he asked Azizan to remember the date he was sodomised because the dates in the charge were not correct.
The police investigator, when questioned by prosecutors, said he did not send Azizan for medical examinations because the alleged incident had happened six years earlier.
"In my experience of rape cases, it will not leave any mark after such a long time," he had said.
But when questioned by Karpal, Musa told the court that he had no experience in dealing with sodomy cases and agreed that Azizan should have been sent for a medical test based on the initial charge date.
The date of Anwar's alleged offence has been changed three times since he was initially charged.
During the earlier corruption trial, Azizan said he was repeatedly forced to have sex with Anwar but at one stage admitted the allegations were false.
A surgeon who examined Sukma in 1997 told the court this week that damage to the former boutique owner's anus was not necessarily evidence of sodomy.