{"id":32536,"date":"2014-11-22T22:22:18","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T14:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=32536"},"modified":"2014-11-22T22:05:44","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T14:05:44","slug":"if-the-court-is-independent-ill-be-acquitted-says-malaysia-opposition-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/11\/22\/if-the-court-is-independent-ill-be-acquitted-says-malaysia-opposition-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If the court is independent, I\u2019ll be acquitted,\u2019 says Malaysia opposition leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Malaysian<\/a>
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. Firdaus Latif<\/a> \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON\u2014Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim told The Associated Press on Friday he\u2019s confident of acquittal in his sodomy trial, so long as the Southeast Asian nation\u2019s top court demonstrates independence.<\/p>\n

Anwar spoke by phone from New York as he rounded off a brief speaking tour at U.S. universities. Although on bail, he was allowed to travel from Malaysia, where a verdict is pending in his appeal against a five-year sentence handed down in March that would also see him banned from politics.<\/p>\n

A guilty verdict could weaken the opposition coalition he leads, but it could also create a wave of public anger against the government, which has been led by the same party for nearly six decades.<\/p>\n

Anwar was previously imprisoned for six years on similar charges in the Muslim majority country after he was ousted as deputy prime minister in 1998. That sodomy conviction, involving his former family driver, was subsequently quashed.<\/p>\n

Critics and human rights activists say the latest case, involving a male aide of Anwar\u2019s, is another salvo in a long-running campaign by the government to smear and silence its most potent threat. His treatment has drawn concern from the U.S. and other Western governments.<\/p>\n

Anwar, however, said he\u2019s not tempted to stay in America.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have given this some thought and discussed with my family, but I think I have no option but to return,\u201d the 67-year-old politician said. \u201cI have been in this struggle for a long time. I\u2019m committed to the country, to the reform agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy because of my age and my back condition. I\u2019m not as strong as I was in my 20s or in my 50s when I spent six years in solitary confinement,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we have to continue the battle for democracy, and the fight against racism and religious bigotry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Najib Razak\u2019s party has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957\u2014a period of relative stability and prosperity in the moderate Muslim country. But Najib faces declining support, and activists say government intolerance of religious and ethnic minorities is rising. Anwar\u2019s opposition alliance won the popular vote in 2013 elections but didn\u2019t win enough seats to form a government.<\/p>\n

State prosecutors and the government deny the case against Anwar is politically motivated. Sodomy, even consensual, is a crime in Malaysia under a colonial-era law that is rarely applied.<\/p>\n

This April, President Barack Obama became the first American president in nearly 50 years to visit Malaysia. He raised with Najib concern over Anwar\u2019s treatment, but human rights groups criticized the president for not meeting the opposition leader. National security adviser Susan Rice did instead.<\/p>\n

Anwar said he had not requested a meeting with senior officials of the Obama administration this week. He spoke at Stanford University in California and Georgetown University in Washington.<\/p>\n

Anwar said U.S. diplomats monitor his trial in Malaysia, \u201cso there isn\u2019t much more for me to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo my mind, my case is very strong in respect of the law, but I don\u2019t know to what extent the supreme court can be truly independent. If it\u2019s independent I have no qualms whatsoever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u2014Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim told The Associated Press on Friday he\u2019s confident of acquittal in his sodomy trial, so …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":32537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-w","mauthors-matthew-pennington","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}