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No delay in releasing results of poison claims: Anwar's wife

Date: 13 Sep 1999
Time: 07:48:45
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No delay in releasing results of poison claims: Anwar's wife

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 (AFP) - There was no deliberate attempt to delay the release of test results alleging that jailed Malaysian ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim was poisoned with arsenic, his wife said Sunday. In a statement, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail offered a detail explanation to counter government charges the disclosure was timed to coincide with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in New Zealand.

"Anwar's urine sample was sent to the Kuala Lumpur branch of Gribbles Pathology Malaysia on 18 August. Gribbles Pathology Melbourne, Australia tested the sample on 26 August," she said.

The test result was sent back to Kuala Lumpur on September 8. Azizah said she obtained the report the next day, and immediately disclosed the matter in Anwar's ongoing sodomy trial on Friday.

"We have never delayed the disclosure of the test results as alleged by the prime minister and other government leaders. Their remarks reflected their irresponsibility and cruelty," she said.

Such statements were aimed at "manipulating and diverting the public's attention from the truth," she charged.

Anwar, who was sacked and arrested last September and is now serving a six-year jail sentence for abuse of power, was hospitalised Friday after his lawyers revealed that traces of arsenic 77 times the normal level were found in a specimen of his urine.

Defence lawyers alleged the poisoning was part of a conspiracy by those in "high places" to destroy Anwar, who himself described it as an "attempted murder."

Cabinet ministers also questioned the timing of the disclosure, charging it could be a stunt designed to coincide with the APEC summit.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad himself has dismissed fears of a murder plot against Anwar, saying it was not in Malaysia's culture to kill for political reasons.

But opposition groups Sunday reminded the premier of past cases.

A cabinet minister was convicted and sentenced in the early 1980s for the murder of a state assemblyman although he was subsequently pardoned and released, said opposition lawmaker Lim Kit Siang.

There was also the "cold-blooded murder" of a senior bank official in 1983 in connection with a probe into a scandal, Lim said, adding that Malaysia's "political culture seems to have undergone considerable change in recent years and for the worse."

The opposition Malaysian People's Party noted there were tales of torture and death of dissidents in the country's historical chronicles.

"And now, why is it not possible for a political enemy to be poisoned to a slow death and then after the story can be spread around by the controlled institutions that he died of AIDS, resulting from his homosexual activities?" asked its president Syed Husin Ali.


Last changed: September 13, 1999