[ Laman Ehwal Semasa ReformIS ]
Date: 10 Sep 1999
Time: 18:21:35
Remote User: -
Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Friday, September 10, 1999:
Malaysians are shocked by the court revelation today that former Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is suffering from suspected arsenic poisoning, which may explain his unusual weight loss as well as hair loss and DAP calls for a completely independent medical examination into the physical well-being of Anwar one year after incarceration.
Anwar’s second trial was adjourned this morning when his counsel, Karpal Singh said at the outset that the defence team had received a pathologist report from Melbourne certifying that there was an excessive level of the poison in Anwar's urine.
A year ago, any suggestion of arsenic poisoning of a prisoner particularly one who had held as high a post as Deputy Prime Minister would have been unthinkable.
But so many incredible things have transpired in the past 12 months which had made the nation suddenly aware that important and independent institutions of the state had been so subverted and compromised that such a suggestion is no more unthinkable to substantial sections of the Malaysian people.
This is especially the case when a person who had just held the high post of Deputy Prime Minister could be assaulted in the very inner sanctum of the police high command not only until blue-back in the eye but within an inch of his life, and by none other than the then Inspector-General of Police as well as the vengeful and vindictive manner in which "thorns" in the eyes of the powers-that-be are persecuted and victimised.
Lim Kit Siang