Anwar accuses Najib of using system to jail him

(MMO) – Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim claimed former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak abused the country’s legal system to imprison him a second time for sodomy.

Speaking to The Observer, the sister paper to UK’s The Guardian, Anwar also said he would not have been jailed if the 13th general election was free and fair as it would have been won by the now defunct Pakatan Rakyat.

The PKR de facto leader told the newspaper that he had, for a time, been frustrated by Malaysia’s institutions, before coming to terms with its frailties and abusers.

“… after you have experienced jail for a long time, after so many years, you don’t really have that bitterness. I’m not pretending to be this great humanitarian, merciful person, but honestly I didn’t feel bitter.

“In the end you philosophise and just accept the unfolding drama,” said Anwar in response to questions seeking his views on Malaysia’s justice system.

The former deputy prime minister, who was first charged with sodomy in 1999 under Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s administration, also said his children were initially unhappy and had disagreed with the call for reconciliation by Dr Mahathir.

Although he was suspicious at the beginning, Anwar decided to give it a chance after discussing with Dr Mahathir and believed the latter had mellowed with age.

“My children refused to participate, and were in tears in the corner. They couldn’t understand why I would meet this man who made their life hell. They disagreed with me, told me I should not make a deal with Mahathir, said to me ‘you suffered, we all suffered, because of him’.

“It was very difficult for me and initially I said to Mahathir: ‘Why would I want to have anything to do with you any more. I will forgive you, but goodbye: that’s it’.

“But after we talked and knowing the man as I do ― filled as he is with self-confidence, self-indulgent at times ― suddenly coming to see me, his nemesis, in prison, was a sign that he was really desperate or he had really mellowed quite a bit. And that was precisely what had happened,” he said.

Anwar was reported to have told his children it was difficult to turn down an offer by his former nemesis to reconcile and forget the past.

Though he said Dr Mahathir did not apologise for the past ordeal his family went through, he said it was adequate that the latter had conceded he would not have fired Anwar then.

“Coming from Mahathir, is good enough for me,” he said.

Dr Mahathir led Pakatan Harapan to win the 14th general election and revealed soon after he was sworn in as prime minister that the Yang diPertuan Agong Sultan Muhammad V expressed readiness to pardon Anwar.

His office then arranged a Pardons Board hearing to this end, resulting in Anwar’s exculpation and immediate release from his five-year prison term on Wednesday.

The pardon is crucial for Anwar to contest and win a federal seat in order to be eligible to succeed Dr Mahathir as prime minister.

The development gained a karmic quality this week. While Anwar’s legal troubles all melted away, the same was beginning to build for Najib who is under a money laundering investigation related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

The former convict offered some sage advice to his political rival in the area with which he became painfully familiar: criminal trials.

“[Have] good defence lawyers. And express remorse.”