The Federal Court’s 5-0 conviction of Anwar Ibrahim for Sodomy II on Tuesday, February 10, has lost in two higher courts – the court of opinion in Malaysia and the court of international opinion worldwide.
Tonight’s capacity-crowd turnout and the pain and sorrow felt by Malaysians in the past five days at the Federal Court’s dismissal of Anwar’s appeal and upholding the five-year jail sentence on the 67-year Parliamentary Opposition Leader are proof that Malaysians generally do not find any credibility in the the Federal Court’s verdict.
In the international court of opinion, Malaysia had been in the dock in the past week.
Malaysians should feel proud as Malaysians this year with the country starting its term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and Chairman of ASEAN, after a year when Malaysians dared not identify themselves in foreign countries that they were Malaysians because of the still-inexplicable disappearance catastrophe of MH 370 jetliner with 339 passengers and crew from 15 nations onboard, although we are less than a month from its ill-fated first anniversary.
In fact, this is the first time that the new generation of Malaysians had felt so small with the universal condemnation of the Federal Court decision, whether by the governments of United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland (which declared that it would raise Anwar’s jailing at the next meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva) and the European Union, or by international legal, parliamentary and human rights organizations like the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, LAWASIA and the Law Council of Australia or by the world press like Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.
Malaysians are therefore not alone in their rejection of the Federal Court decision to dismiss Anwar’s appeal and to jail him for five years, as international condemnation of the Federal Court verdict is loud and clear on the world stage.
Anwar’s third incarceration forms a trio of cases in Malaysia where there is the most blatant and flagrant travesty of justice, the other two being the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu and the killing of DAP aide Teoh Beng Hock on July 16, 2009.
I am still astounded that the “twitter” Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has yet to launch a thorough and wide-ranging inquiry to ascertain why two police commandos Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar of the elite police squad, the Special Action Unit (UTK), tasked with protecting people’s lives, had murdered in cold blood defenceless Altantuya Shaariibuu, blowing up her body in a jungle clearing with C4 explosives on Oct. 19, 2006, although their murder trial had ended with their conviction and death sentence.
The question that is inevitably asked inside the country and all over the world is who could be behind the two Bukit Aman Special Action Squad (UTK) cops’ C4 murder of Altantuya.
Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar had holed up in Australia in the past month, refusing to return to Malaysia to face the gallows.
Who can blame Sirul for refusing to return to Malaysia for his death sentence to be executed, if he had acted, however mistakenly, not as a “rogue policeman” but in the highest interest of the state on the instructions of his “patrons”
The case of Teoh Beng Hock, who was alleged to have committed suicide and jumped off the 14th floor of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission headquarters in Shah Alam on 16th July 2009 continues to cry out for justice – for he was clearly killed as there was no reason for him to commit suicide.
In July last year, our “twitter” Inspector-General of Police announced that the police will investigate me for “sedition” for my comment on the fifth death anniversary of Teoh Beng Hock (TBH) that Beng Hock had been murdered and that the killers were still at large.
It was fortunate that in September, the Court of Appeal agreed with me in its ruling that Teoh Beng Hock’s death was caused by persons or persons unknown, or I would have been hauled to court to face a “sedition” trial.
What can ordinary Malaysian do to seek justice in the Anwar Ibrahim case?
In fact, the fate of Anwar Ibrahim is now in the hands of ordinary Malaysians.
Although the highest court in the land have pronounced “guilty” and the five-year jail sentence on Anwar, the highest power in the land which practices parliamentary democracy are still the voters in the form of People Power.
If Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, political affiliation or region, are united to end the travesty of justice in the Anwar case, it is still open to them to free Anwar earlier from jail and to restore his civic rights, including fulfilling his destiny as the Prime Minister of Malaysia, through a clear-cut decision in the 14th General Election to vote out the UMNO/BN Federal Government in Putrajaya.