Debate with Bar instead of roadshow on Anwar case, minister tells Shafee

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri is hoping Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah debates the Bar Council on the conviction of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, instead of going on a road show. – The Malaysian Insider pic, February 19, 2015.Defacto law minister Nancy Shukri today suggested that Umno lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah have a public debate with one of his biggest critics, the Bar Council, to end his tirade against jailed opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Nancy said she is personally against Shafee's decision to go on the Umno organised roadshow to explain the Federal Court's decision to uphold Anwar's conviction and five-year jail term for sodomy.

“Let the people listen to them. Do it once and for all. Then Shafee does not have to go around any more,” the minister in the Prime Minister's Department told reporters at the Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) New Year open house in Kuching.

“I would agree we (the Federal government) should not do it too much.

“It looks bad (on the government and Shafee).”

Nancy said Shafee's speaking engagements might have the reverse effect and “people might sympathise with Anwar” instead.

On February 10, the Federal Court bench led by Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria dismissed Anwar’s final appeal against his conviction for sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

Shafee was appointed by Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail in July 2013 to conduct the prosecution's appeal after the High Court acquitted Anwar.

Former Bar Council president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan had said it was unprecedented for Shafee to attack an accused person after a court has delivered its verdict.

She said it was not done in good faith and it was improper because Anwar could not defend himself.

Lawyers for Liberty executive director Eric Paulsen, said Shafee’s on-going tirade against Anwar only showed he is now Umno's hatchet man with a vendetta.

The Malaysian Movement of Muslim Youths (Abim) had said Umno's nationwide roadshow is dangerous and detrimental for the future of the country while PKR Youth said it was a desperate attempt by Umno to win the trust of the people.

Explaining Shafee’s decision to go on the roadshow, Nancy said: “Shafee did not want to do it. The government did not ask him to do it. He is doing it based on requests from NGOs.

“People want to hear the facts from him. They cannot read the judgment because it’s too long.”

She said they also couldn't get the real facts by reading what was written in social media especially postings by those who are pro-opposition.

Nancy also said the government was in a difficult position as it was beyond its control if the NGOs wanted him to speak.

“We (the government) cannot stop him. He is also obliged to tell the people what's actually going on. He has been discredited for what he's doing.

“He's in a very difficult position – to do or not to do.”

On Monday, Shafee issued a 20-paragraph media statement criticising Anwar for giving a statement from the dock, saying that unlike Saiful, he was not willing to be cross-examined.

"This was his right under the law, but he used it to also attack the prosecution, the judges and his former colleagues in the government.

"He also undermined the country's reputation," Shafee said.

Ambiga had noted that Anwar had raised the defence of alibi but he abandoned it when it was demonstrated to be false by closed-circuit television footage shown in the court during trial.

Shafee, she added, had said that Anwar also refused to swear on the Quran about the sodomy incident but that his accuser swore on the Holy Book about the details of the case, both in Malaysia and in Mecca.

Ambiga said that was not proper because he (Shafee) had brought in extraneous factors.

- TMI