KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 11 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has again failed again to boot Umno lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah from the prosecution team in the government’s appeal against the Opposition Leader’s sodomy acquittal.

In rejecting Anwar’s bid, the Federal Court said it could not accept “hotly disputed” accusations levelled at Shafee by Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim to ask the lawyer step aside.

According to news portal The Malaysian Insider, the decision was reached unanimously by a five-man Federal Court bench led by Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinuddin.

Outside the courtroom earlier, Shafee reportedly told the press that he has been a “close friend” of Anwar’s since sixth form and harbours no animosity towards the leader of the federal opposition pact.

“If you ask him whether I know him, at one point of time I was closest to him compared to Dr Mahathir, Abdullah and Najib Abdul Razak,” Malaysiakini quoted Shafee as saying, in reference to former prime ministers Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and current prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Shafee said, however, that he has not acted for Anwar as he knows things about the leader “which can be used in this case”.

“In this case, he (Anwar) should be able to point out where I have a problem with him or if there is a conflict of interest. I do not want to say much as I know him well,” he was quoted as saying.

In early December last year, Anwar used Mat Zain’s October 7 statutory declaration as grounds to file his second application to disqualify Shafee from leading the government’s prosecution team, which is appealing his Sodomy II acquittal.

In his declaration, Mat Zain had accused Shafee, a prominent Umno lawyer, of complicity in several other legal matters.

Anwar noted then that in the declaration, the ex-police officer had alleged that Shafee had known of Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail’s action in allegedly suppressing important evidence in the Pulau Batu Puteh hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2007 that caused Malaysia to lose Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore.

“Shafee told Mat Zain that ‘you (would) not believe your eyes if you were to see the amount of cash that was transferred into Gani’s account in Hong Kong’.

“Shafee agreed with Mat Zain that Gani had fabricated evidence against myself during the “black eye” investigation.

“Shafee agreed it was indeed true that Dr Abdul Rahman bin Yusof, a forensic consultant at Kuala Lumpur Hospital had fabricated evidence in my “black eye” investigation,” Anwar wrote in a statement then to explain his application.

The PKR leader noted that Mat Zain had also claimed that Shafee was of the view that the three-member judicial panel that cleared Gani and former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Musa Hassan of allegations of tampering with his blood sample had been an “unconstitutional sitting”.

But on December 20, the Court of Appeal rejected Anwar’s application, saying the leader’s reasons for disqualification lacked merit.

Anwar had also applied to disqualify Shafee on November 21 last year, citing conflict of interest in the appointment of Shafee to act as deputy public prosecutor. The Federal Court struck out the application.