Tun Arifin ZakariaPUTRAJAYA, Nov 7 (Bernama) -- The Federal Court here Friday reserved judgment on the final appeal of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim against a sodomy conviction and five-year jail sentence.
Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria, chairing a five-man bench, said the panel needed more time to make a decision.
Arifin extended Anwar's bail of RM10,000, pending the Apex Court verdict. The hearing of the appeal had gone on for eight days, beginning Oct 28.
The other four judges on the panel were Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Md Raus Sharif and Federal Court judges Tan Sri Abdull Hamid Embong, Tan Sri Suriyadi Halim Omar and Datuk Ramly Ali.
The highest court in the country will make its ruling on whether to allow or dismiss Anwar's appeal to set aside his conviction and jail sentence imposed by the Court of Appeal on March 7 this year, after it had overturned a High Court decision to acquit him.
If Anwar loses his appeal, he would be disqualified as the member of parliament (MP) for Permatang Pauh as per Article 48(1)(e) of the Federal Constitution which states that an MP would be disqualified if he or she is sentenced to a jail term of more than a year, or fined more than RM2,000.
The prosecution had also filed a cross-appeal to enhance the jail sentence. However, the matter will only be heard if the Federal Court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal.
The hearing, which was initially set for two days from Oct 28, has been dragged for eight days as the defence and prosecution presented lengthy submissions and a lot of law cases were cited in the appeal.
Earlier, Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram, a former Federal Court judge who is leading a team of 15 lawyers representing Anwar, had wraped up the defence submission.
The other lawyers are Ramkarpal Singh Deo, Sangeet Kaur Deo, Gobind Singh Deo, N. Surendran, R. Sivarasa, J. Leela, Latheefa Koya, Lim Choon Khim, Eric Paulsen, Michelle Yesudas, Shahid Adli Kamaruddin, Zaleha Al-Hayat, Jeremy Vinesh Anthony and Mohamed Aliff Bolkin.
A senior lawyer, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, is leading the prosecution team in the appeal. He is assisted by deputy public prosecutor Datuk Mohamad Hanafiah Zakaria.
In the appeal, Anwar, 67, is seeking the apex court to set aside the conviction and sentence imposed by the Court of Appeal on March 7 this year after it had overturned a High Court decision to acquit him.
The Court of Appeal had found Anwar guilty of having sodomised his former aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 27, at Unit 11-5-1 of the Desa Damansara Condominium in Jalan Setiakasih, Bukit Damansara, between 3.10pm and 4.30pm on June 26, 2008.
The charge under Section 377B of the Penal Code carries a jail sentence of up to 20 years and whipping, upon conviction.
The defence is seeking to free the opposition leader from the sodomy conviction while the prosecution wants the court to dismiss Anwar's appeal to overturn his conviction and jail term.
On Jan 9, 2012, the High Court acquitted and discharged Anwar of having sodomised Mohd Saiful on the grounds that the court could not be 100 per cent certain on the integrity of samples taken for DNA testing from the alleged victim.
The court had ruled that the samples could have been compromised before they reached the Chemistry Department for analysis.
However, the Court of Appeal, in convicting Anwar on the sodomy charge, held that the trial judge had erred in his findings about the samples which were based on the evidence of two expert witnesses called by the defence.
No comments:
Post a Comment