KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 — A road show organised by Umno Youth for private lawyer Tan Sri Muhd Shafee Abdullah to attack Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim invites scrutiny of whether the former is acting for the state or Umno when prosecuting the federal opposition leader, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang said.
The road show that will allow Shafee to wage a “vicious and vengeful campaign” against the jailed Anwar also showed that while the Umno-linked lawyer won over the judges in court, he was unable to convince the public both at home and abroad, Lim added.
According to the Gelang Patah MP, the decision to embark on such a campaign made it imperative for Putrajaya to reveal how much it paid the public prosecutor under fiat for his services during Anwar’s trial, and whether this covered his continued public denigration of the opposition leader.
“Malaysian taxpayers are also entitled to know whether they are also paying for Shafee’s nation-wide Umno road show to justify the Federal Court’s decision against Anwar, as well as to take the opportunity to carry out a vicious and vengeful campaign against Anwar, and if so, the exact full amounts or fees or whether he is rendering his services to Umno pro bono.
“In fact, the unprecedented and questionable nationwide roadshow by Shafee raises the question whether he was public prosecutor or Umno prosecutor in the Anwar Sodomy II prosecution,” Lim said in a statement today.
In the event Shafee’s remuneration is revealed to be the equivalent of Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail’s salary, Lim said this would prompt the public to ask why the government’s top lawyer was unable to carry out the prosecution personally and was “privatising” the duty.
At a forum organised by Umno Youth on Tuesday, Shafee labelled Anwar a “closet homosexual” who only cried political conspiracy to deflect attention on his alleged sexual orientation.
The private lawyer added that Anwar’s purported homosexuality made him a “dangerous” man and a threat to national security.
At the same forum, Shafee also urged Putrajaya to act against the Bar Council that he claimed was now a “political animal” and a tool for the opposition to target the government.
In subsequent interviews with local media, he also urged the A-G to initiate contempt proceedings against Anwar after the latter harangued the Federal Court judges who upheld his conviction.
Shafee’s remarks were later held up by Pakatan Rakyat lawmakers as further evidence of the political persecution that Anwar claimed was behind his prosecution and conviction under rarely-used laws criminalising unnatural sex.
Last week, the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s 2014 ruling that had reversed Anwar’s acquittal of sodomising former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and sentenced the
Permatang Pauh lawmaker to five years’ jail.
Anwar will be disqualified as MP and federal opposition leader by Tuesday unless he files a petition seeking a royal pardon.
