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©Today
Online, Singapore (Used by permission)
No conspiracy, no one is above the law: :Syed Hamid Albar
KUALA LUMPUR — An hour before he was to voluntarily appear at the police
headquarters to answer sodomy allegations, Mr Anwar Ibrahim found a police party
waiting outside his house.
Mr Anwar was in a car approaching his home at :12.55pm when he found the road
blocked by 10 police cars and 20 officers, some in ski masks, according to his
Keadilan party. Mr Anwar was then bundled, but not handcuffed, into a police
vehicle with tinted windows and driven to the police headquarters.
The arrest, which immediately brought back memories of September 1998 when Mr
Anwar was also forcibly taken from his house by police, is likely to exacerbate
the current political tensions.
“This is not a criminal case but a political case,” said Mr Azmin Ali,
Keadilan’s vice-president.
Mr Anwar, 60, has been in a tense stand-off with police since a 23-year-old
former aide,Mr Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, accused him of sodomy two weeks ago.
Mr Anwar has denied the accusation, calling it a political conspiracy by the
government to snuff out a campaign by his three-party opposition coalition to
seize power.
Following news of his arrest, supporters and opposition lawmakers, including Mr
Anwar’s wife,Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, gathered outside the police headquarters.
The mood was tense, with up to 100 armed officers watching some 200 protestors,
with water canons at the ready. There was no violence.
Earlier, Dr Wan Azizah told reporters thatMr Anwar had called her from the
police car to say he had been arrested. “I feel apprehensive because my husband
is ... not that well. He has a bad back ... and from the brief conversation, he
said they (the police) were not gentle,” said Dr Wan Azizah, who was in
Parliament when Mr Anwar called her.
Last evening, Keadilan said Mr Anwar was taken to the hospital after about six
hours of interrogation.
“I don’t think this is necessary. If you need a DNA swab you can do it up there
(in police headquarters), you don’t need to take a man to hospital for a DNA
swab,” said Mr Tian Chua, the party’s information chief. “This is a big game
being played out.”
WHY POLICE ACTED
Deputy Home Minister Wan Farid Wan Salleh said police moved in because they
learnt that Mr Anwar was heading home and suspected he would not make the 2pm
deadline.
Police can detain Mr Anwar or 24 hours, after which they must apply for a court
order that would allow them to keep him for up to 14 days without charge.
Bar Council president Ambiga Sreenevasan described the arrest as regrettable.
“The treatment of Anwar will receive the utmost public scrutiny and we really
hope we are not seeing a repeat of the fiasco of 1998,” she said.
Back then, Mr Anwar was also charged with sodomy. The accusation led to the his
dismissal from the government and subsequent imprisonment. His downfall led to
massive street protests by his supporters for weeks.
WHAT NOW?
The latest sodomy allegation, and now his arrest, threaten to derail Mr Anwar’s
campaign to topple the Barisan Nasional government.
The case, if it goes to court “will create doubts among supporters and also
those who might want to cross over to the opposition” Mr Yap Swee Seng,
executive director of Suaram, a human rights group, told TODAY.
However, Mr Ibrahim Suffian, director of the Merdeka Center, told Bloomberg that
the incident “will certainly increase sympathy for him”.
As to whether Malaysians will take to the streets to protest if Mr Anwar remains
in jail, Malaysian political analyst and law lecturer Azmi Sharom said “we have
to wait and see”.
“I think Keadilan and the opposition are aware that if there is trouble, the
government can use it as an excuse to do a repeat of Ops Lalang, using the
Internal Security Act (ISA) to detain members,” Mr Azmi, referring to the 1987
government crackdown, told TODAY. - AGENCIES, with additional reporting by NAZRY
BAHRAWI
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