H-Net* Anwar to know Monday whether sodomy trial will go on

[Concorde]

Anwar to know Monday whether sodomy trial will go on KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 13 (AFP) - The judge in the sodomy trial of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim said Wednesday he would decide by Monday whether to throw out the case against him. After hearing detailed submissions from the prosecution and defence, Judge Arifin Jaka adjourned the hearing to study the evidence before ruling whether Anwar had a case to answer. "I will reserve my decision for Monday," he said, adding he would need to "burn the midnight candle". Anwar, sacked and arrested in September 1998, was jailed for six years in April for abusing his official position by seeking to cover up allegations of heterosexual and homosexual misconduct. In the current trial which began June 7, he and his Indonesian adopted brother Sukma Darmawan are accused of sodomising Azizan Abu Bakar, the former driver of Anwar's wife. Sodomy is punishable by up to 20 years. Anwar says he is the victim of a top-level political conspiracy. Earlier, defence counsel Karpal Singh reiterated the possibility of a "high-level conspiracy" against Anwar, citing prosecution amendments to the date of the sodomy charge from 1994 to 1992 and finally to early 1993. "There must be something wrong with these persistent amendments," he said. "There must have been mala-fide, there must have been conspiracy in the highest place. "Someone up there -- and it is not God -- wants a conviction in this case," he added. Sukma's counsel Gobin Singh Deo said the prosecution arguments were "slipshod" and "desperate," and urged Arifin to throw out the case. Prosecutor Abdul Gani Patail meanwhile, told the judge that Azizan's three-month conviction by an Islamic Shariah court last month did not mean he was an unbelievable witness. "The conviction of Azizan in the Shariah court can only put this court on guard to scrutinise his evidence thoroughly but it cannot be a ground to reject his evidence completely," Gani added. Defence lawyers say Azizan's conviction for attempted illicit sex with a woman he later married casts doubt on his credibility.