Does A-G condone Shafee’s attacks against Anwar, asks DAP

Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is now in jail after losing his sodomy appeal but the behaviour of the lead prosecutor in his trial is now under scrutiny. – The Malaysian Insider pic, February 15, 2015.

DAP wants Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail to state if the A-G’s Chambers condones the attacks and criticism of convicted people, following Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah's tirade against jailed Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

The party’s legal bureau chairman Gobind Singh Deo said Gani should advise Shafee, who was lead prosecutor in the opposition leader's sodomy appeal, to "put a lid" on his commentary and criticism against Anwar.

He said the ad hoc deputy public prosecutor’s post-conviction conduct against Anwar was embarrassing and shameful to the A-G's office.

"Did Gani authorise the publication of statements attacking and ridiculing Anwar after the Federal Court affirmed his conviction?

"Does a fiat given by the Attorney-General to a private person in a criminal matter extend beyond and after the matter he is assigned to is finally disposed of in court?

"Is it not an abuse of power for the Attorney-General, be it personally or through his deputies or authorised persons, to carry through with open attacks against a convicted person on his behalf after his prosecution has come to an end?" he asked in a statement today.

Gobind said this was a serious matter as the A-G would be going beyond what was required of him in both law and ethics as public prosecutor.

"The Federal Constitution gives the Attorney-General powers to prosecute. It stops there.

"I must, as a member of parliament, condemn any conduct on part of the Attorney-General which is oppressive and amounts to an abuse of process and power. No one should ever take any pride in attacking another who cannot defend himself," said the Puchong MP.

Shafee came under fire from lawyers for saying that Anwar hid behind a skirt by choosing to give a statement from the dock when ordered to enter his defence at the trial stage of his seven-year sodomy case.

In an interview with the Umno-controlled The New Straits Times (NST) on Friday, the Umno lawyer said if Anwar had taken the stand, the torrent of questions would have been so unrelenting that Anwar would have "fainted in the witness box".

Shafee also told the NST that Anwar declined to utilise the defence of alibi to prove that he was not at the crime scene because the accused knew it would fall flat.

Anwar had lined up 13 witnesses, including his wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, but his lawyers during the trial decided against using the defence on grounds that some of them were harassed.

"I think he would have fainted in the witness box because he wouldn't be able to explain a lot of things, like why he put in his defence of alibi and then backed off," Shafee said, according to the report.

The lawyer also urged everyone to read the written judgment posted on the judiciary's website to understand how the Federal Court arrived at its decision, saying it was based entirely on facts and not ideas entertained by the opposition and the Bar Council.

Shafee challenged anyone to a debate to dissect the judgment, adding that he fought to the best of his ability to convict Anwar with a clear conscience and was 100% sure of the PKR de facto leader's guilt.

 He also said he was willing to swear to Anwar’s guilt in a mosque or in Mecca, reported Mingguan Malaysia today.

Gobind also urged the Bar Council to state its position on this matter and to set markers on cases where members of the Bar were invited to prosecute as their conduct in such a capacity would impact on the reputation of members of the bar.

On Thursday, former Bar Council chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan said that it was unprecedented for Shafee to attack an accused person after the court delivered its verdict.

Lawyer Ramkarpal Singh also took Shafee to task for misleading the public by saying the late Karpal Singh had accused Anwar of sexual misconduct in late 1997.

Anwar, 67, was acquitted by the High Court in 2012 of a charge of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008.

A five-man bench led by Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria, however, on Tuesday upheld the conviction and five-year jail term imposed by the Court of Appeal last year.

- TMI